Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.

My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. In the burrow he meets a worm and a mole but they too don’t appreciate his rhymes. It’s not until he digs his way out of the earth and into a field where he meets a friendly sheep that he finally finds a friend who likes rhymes as much as he does. The Rhyming Rabbit and the sheep spend the whole night and the next day making up new rhymes together. When he has to leave, the Rhyming Rabbit vows to return again the next day to see his new friend. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.

Diaries & Calendars

However, because Chunky Monkey lead them to look for word chunks throughout the words, they often ignored the simplest and most obvious possibility – making the connection with the end of the word and using a rhyme. One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading. His books are in fact, partially the inspiration behind this next reading strategy that does not typically appear on classroom walls.

This is because rhyming essentially teaches children how language works. Specifically, it introduces them to the rhythm of language and helps them to notice the patterns sounds make in words.Rhyming Rabbit is a reading strategy that teaches young readers to think about words that end similar to another word and potential rhymes to help them decode the word. The Rhyming Rabbit loves to make up entertaining poems, inspired by everything he sees, but the other rabbits don’t appreciate his talent for rhyme. Sad and lonely, the Rhyming Rabbit sets off one starry night all on his own – will he ever find someone to share his poems with?

Enjoy all the stories from Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks: Sharing a Shell, The Princess and the Wizard, The Rhyming Rabbit, The Singing Mermaid, Sugarlump and the Unicorn, Princess Mirror-Belle and the Dragon Pox, What the Ladybird Heard, What the Ladybird Heard Next and What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday.

Curriculum

For the purposes of this game I create about 10 pairs. The objective of the game is to find the corresponding matches and correctly read them.