Owen: From English to Japanese

A. has amazed us again with her knowledge of both the Japanese and English language. Our class has been studying Kevin Henkes as an author and illustrator. This morning A came in and showed us the book of Owen. Owen was one of the first books we read as a class of Mr. Henkes. The students loved the story of a boy who wanted to take his blanket to school with him in Kindergarten. At first glance it looked the same as our book, then we noticed it was written in Japanese. Of course A said she could read the book and would be willing to read it to the class. We were so excited. A did an outstanding job. She used intonation and read with fluency. The other students were spell-bound by her knowledge of both languages. We are so fortunate to be able to share both books with our class. Thank you A for making this possible.


Please stay tuned for an audio peak of A reading Owen.

Text to Text Connections in English and Japanese

During our Eric Carle author study, our class was reading the story Where Are You Going? To See My Friend! when we noticed that the book had both English and Japanese text. We told the class that we could not read in Japanese so we weren't sure of what the text said, but we thought it was the same story that Eric Carle wrote about. "A" raised her hand and said, "I can read that story to you.". We were very excited and we allowed her to read it to the class. After that encounter we soon discovered how fluent in both languages "A" could read. Our Standards-Based Bulletin board this month shows the amazing journey she has made to become literate in two languages. Below is a recording of her reading another story by Eric Carle and a similar story she found in Japanese. The story is Walter the Baker. She brought in her Japanese story the next day to share with the class because she said the stories were very similar.