Recently, I read a graphic novel called Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. It is about a girl growing up in Iran in the 1970s and 1980s. While I had previously attempted to learn more about that region's conflicts and underlying causes of them through reading traditional textbooks and news articles, I feel like I never really had a firm grasp of how the recent history of the country impacted how it fits in to the world today.

The format of this book, however, really helped me to see not only the personal impact of the revolutions and war during that time on one family, but also to understand some of the broader political and religious situations that contributed to this time of upheaval. While it looks like a comic book with its black and white drawings and speech and thought bubbles, and is broken into vignettes that could be read as individual stories, altogether the book really helped me to better understand the historical context of what has happened in the Middle East in the last few decades.

There are a variety of graphic novels and graphic representations of different historical periods that may help you or your student build background knowledge on this topic or others that students are learning about in Social Studies, Science, or other classes. Having background knowledge, as you know, will help you to better understand your textbook or other, more complex required reading. There are also graphic novel adaptations of many classic novels too, which can be a good supplement to reading the real book, an enjoyable review of major plot points, or a good previewing and jumping-off place prior to reading the whole book.

Below are some books that present, graphically, content that is common in some middle school and/or high school curricula:
English
The Odyssey adapted by Gareth Hinds (linked here)
Jane Eyre adapted by Crystal S. Chan (linked here)

Science
The Manga Guide to Electricity by Kazuhiro Fujitak (linked here)
Physics, Biology, and Astronomy all by Adrian Dingle (linked here)

Social Studies
​Alexander Hamilton by Jonathan Hennessey (linked here)
Cartoon History of the United States by Larry Gonick (linked here)
Understanding China through Comics (series) by Jing Liu (linked here)

Try reading a graphic novel, either just for fun or as an aid to comprehending other texts and school content, and let us know what you think by commenting below!

Some of the best memories of my life so far have happened during a road trip of some sort... Yet road trips can feel painful and never-ending when there are kids in the back, kicking the seat and continuously asking, "Are we there yet!?"

Below are a couple of games to play during a car ride or really at any time, to keep the kiddos entertained, while also helping to promote their language and working memory development!

Game: Multiple meanings

How to play: Give your child a word that is either a homonym or a homophone. A homonym is a word that has the same spelling and pronunciation but multiple meanings (e.g. pants: something you would wear on the lower half of your body, or something that a dog might do after running in the heat). A homophone is a word that sounds the same as another word, but is spelled differently (e.g. through as in "going through the tunnel" or threw as in "she threw the ball"). 

Ask your child to use the word in a sentence that shows one meaning, then another... there are so many words like this that you or your child can come up with just by looking out the window: site, sight, cite; hoarse, horse; rode, road; reign, rain...

If your child is old enough, ask him or her to try to spell each of the words too! I played this for about an hour in the car with an 8 year old the other day, and he loved it!
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How this helps develop language skills: this game encourages your child to think flexibly about the multiple meanings a word might have, and how a word can be used in different contexts. It also helps with practicing spelling skills and "sounding out" words, as well as receptive language and word retrieval skills.

Game: Word Scramble

How to play: Think of a word (a short one to start- probably no more than 3 letters). Give your child the letters that are in the word, but in the wrong order. You child's job will be to unscramble those letters to figure out the word you're thinking of. Gradually build up to longer words, and have your child scramble up some words for you to try too!

How this helps to develop language and working memory skills: This game encourages your child to work on spelling skills, practicing putting together letters in different ways such as in common blends (e.g. br, ch, th, etc.) and recognize the importance of vowels and where they "show up in relation to consonants. Working memory is the ability to hold and manipulate, or change around, information in short term memory to produce something new. Remembering the letters and mentally shifting them around to create a word is allowing your child to exercise his or her working memory skills!

Variation: If you're not driving, you could write the letters down for your child to look at while trying to unscramble. Or, they could write them down. This would take some of the load off of the working memory, and is a great strategy for those with working memory difficulty or when working with longer words.

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