The Gruffalo: My All-Time Favourite Book for Struggling Young Readers

The first time I’d read this was in 2015. Even though I was reading it aloud for the very first time, it was so easy to pick up the rhythm and ‘music’ within those words that I’d very quickly fallen into a fixed ‘melody’ that has since remained mostly unchanged – and I have almost certainly read it aloud more than a hundred times to date.

The almost song-like quality of the rhymes crafted by Julia Donaldson is beautiful, and so easy for any young children to pick up. My students had loved it [I was teaching Primary 3; the Gruffalo remains one of the texts featured in MOE’s STELLAR syllables], even the ones who had struggled with reading. But it was only in 2016 that that the book truly demonstrated its magic.

That year, I was working with a Primary 3 class again. Only this time, the class had numerous students who were also struggling badly with dyslexia. Two of those students [let’s call them X and Y] were having a particularly difficult time and, compounded with their struggles with self-esteem (naturally), were mostly reluctant to even attempt to read simple stories.

Who could blame them, really? The very easy stories, by virtue of, well, being very easy, are generally also very boring and thus not worth the effort put in by someone already struggling to even decode the simplest words on the pages. And having been labelled as ‘very easy’, it is only doubly depressing when one cannot read them easily.

‘The Gruffalo’ is not an easy book. It contains pretty big words like ‘frightfully’, ‘knobbly’ and ‘poisonous’. It is also not boring. Despite the length, and apparent tedium of repetitive rhythm and plot patterns, we had so much fun going wild with the reading aloud — giving different ‘voices’ to the different characters, using suitable pitches and tones to match the emotions being conveyed at each point. The kids LOVED it. By the end of the term, they were able to read the book aloud like a synchronised dramatic choir, and I’d transcribed the text into Readers’ Theatre scripts for mini performances.

And the highlight of my year was witnessing X and Y standing around a copy of ‘The Gruffalo’ and reciting their favourite parts, complete with dramatic movements and gestures, while waiting for their after-school remedial lesson to start.

Mind you, I am writing this in 2021, so this probably qualifies as one of the highlights of my career.

Of course, it could be argued that the strong rhymes and melody of a story allow struggling readers to rely on their auditory memory of the text and get away with not actually ‘reading’.

However, the point is that through the book, through the children’s enjoyment of the story, a door was opened – this book has given them pleasure never before associated to reading; the story is not only fun and interesting, the melodic and repetitive structures make it easy to pick up and commit to memory; it whispers to them that the words within could be within their reach, and could be well-worth their effort. It gives them the temptation to give reading, and themselves, another chance.

And this door is everything.

Struggling readers may rely on their memory of how the text ‘sounds’ to recall most of the story, but through that, they could also be guided to pay more attention to some of the words and be encouraged to actually read them. Hinging on their auditory memory, a struggling reader can then experience success in visually recognising and reading many of the words printed in the book.

For instance, the word ‘where’ appears six times in the book, ‘walked’ appears four times, ‘has’ five times, and ‘his’ seventeen times. The text can be also extracted and made into various word identification and vocabulary activities that simply pave the way for struggling readers to pick up and retain more Sight Words.

Then one can extend the interest ignited by ‘The Gruffalo’ with its sequel, ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’. After which, a struggling reader could probably be convinced to give the rest of Julia Donaldson’s picture books a chance.

‘The Gruffalo’s Child’, by the way, is an equally beautifully crafted story, and although I find that it is not as strong in its rhymes and melody and thus not as effective for whole-class reading aloud, it is less repetitively tedious and therefore a better personal favourite for when I read aloud to my toddler niece. The other books are just as wonderful, many of which containing the strong rhymes and delightful humour in Julia Donaldson’s signature style.

But I digress. The point here is that ‘The Gruffalo’ has proven to be the strongest contender over the years in lowering a struggling reader’s resistance to reading. And I simply cannot sing enough praises about the quality of the text and how rich it is in terms of learning possibilities.

So if you find yourself working with a struggling young reader, do give this book a chance.

Check out its availability at NLB (Singapore) here –
https://catalogue.nlb.gov.sg/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/WPAC/BIBENQ?SETLVL=&BRN=11386322
 
or just get the paperback copy here –
https://www.bookdepository.com/Gruffalo-Julia-Donaldson/9781509804757?ref=grid-view&qid=1620035112242&sr=1-25 (non-affiliate)
 
Feel free to ask me questions about the book, or share your experience with it.
Stay well, stay safe. Hope to see you well around the corner. (: