Dr. Seuss Teaches Word Families

Dr. Seuss is the master of all Rhyming and children’s books but what you may not know is that he is also a fabulous teacher. Most of us know that Seuss was not the most responsible adults, dropping out of college to travel Europe and contributing political cartoons in his early career.

His first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence – it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press. The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted’s career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children’s primer using only 225 “new-reader” vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children’s book author and illustrator.

As a teacher or as a parent you can use Dr. Seuss to help teach Word Families and reading.