- Hi there, my name is Mrs.

Spear.

Welcome to "Read, Write, Roar!"

I'm so excited that we have a chance to work together this year and learn and grow doing reading and writing.

Let's get started and see what we're going to be up to today on "Read, Write, Roar!"

- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the Michigan Department of Education, the State of Michigan, and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation.

Additional support by, And by viewers like you, thank you.

(playful music) (lion roars) (gentle music) - Hi, learners.

I'm really excited to be here with you today.

We're going to have a chance to hear a very special story called tell, hold on a second.

This is supposed to be not tell, teach.

"Teach Us Your Name."

This story that we're reading is by the author Huda Essa.

She has a very special story about why names are so important and wants us to hear her story.

Now, what I know is that this story is based upon her life, but she says that she added a couple of extra details into it to make it a little bit more interesting.

The illustrator, whose name is Diana Cojocaru, also helps us with this story because you know what?

When she's illustrating or making the pictures for this story, it helps us as readers to be able to picture what's exactly happening in the story as we put the words together and look at the pictures or illustrations to make a complete picture in our minds.

We're gonna get a chance to read together today and figure out why it's so important to teach us your name instead of to tell us your name.

And thank you so much to the author Huda Essa for allowing us to read this story on "Read, Write, Roar!"

So our story today is all about the importance of a name.

What is your name?

Just shout it out for me.

That is a wonderful name.

Now, when you said your name out loud, maybe you said your full name or maybe you gave me what's called a nickname, something that people that are close to you call you.

It's like a special name they give you.

My name is actually Annmarie, but a lot of people, most people call me Annie.

The big idea that I want you to think about today is how important your name is, and that your name is special, it's just for you.

And when you got that name, there was a really special reason why that name was given to you.

As we're reading this story together, I wanna point out that the author, Ms. Huda Essa, made sure that she included a lot of names at the beginning of the book on the first two pages that are more unique or different names that you might not see everywhere.

And she also did that at the end of the book where she included some more names that might also be unique or different.

One thing I do wanna point out to you about this story is this part here, it's called the dedication.

When you write a story as an author, you dedicate it to someone.

It means, I wrote this story and I kind of wanna give it to you in your name because you inspired me.

When Huda Essa wrote this story, she dedicated it to her mom and said, "For my amazing mother, whose unconditional," that means no matter what, "unconditional love and excellent guidance has been my life's most precious gift."

Our names are a pretty special gift that we need to keep in mind.

Now let's read why we should teach and not tell our names.

"It was the first day of school and the words I dreaded hearing tumbled out of my teacher's mouth."

Dreaded, it mean she was like, "No!," when you dread something.

"In a cheerful voice, she," the teacher, "said, 'Now I'm going to take attendance.

Please raise your hand when you hear your name.

Oh, and please correct me if I'm saying it wrong.'

She sent all the students warm smiles after reading their names.

'Paul?

Kathy?

Melanie' I cringed."

Cringe with me, ready?

"I cringed knowing my name would come soon.

'David?

Paula?'

Then, it happened..." Duh duh duh.

That means the bad thing is coming.

"I saw her smile fade, her eyes squint, and her lips purse together like she was trying to figure out a tricky puzzle."

Purse your lips with me, ready?

Like.

"She quietly cleared her throat," (clears throat) "Well, let me see if I can get this one.

Is it Karma-lie-yee-zeen-aid-een?

Am I saying it right?'

Her voice swelled with hope.

I bashfully nodded my head.

'Okay, good.'

She smiled with relief and content."

Now I'm sure you might be able to picture if you were this little girl sitting in this classroom and dreading someone reading your name and then they read it and she smiled and said she read it right.

But I'm wondering, do you think that was the right way that the teacher read the story?

Was it the right way or the wrong way?

I'm with you, I think it was not the right way.

Why do you think that the little girl would not say something?

Do you have some ideas about that?

Like, why wouldn't she say, "Well, that's not how you say my name."

Yeah, that'd be hard to say on the first day of school, right?

You don't wanna be embarrassed and feel weird about it.

And she didn't probably wanna correct someone that was her teacher.

If I look at her face right here, she's looking very sad.

And here's what she says.

"I was too embarrassed to look up again, afraid I'd see others laughing at me.

My teacher continued with attendance but the only voice I could hear was the one in my head."

Now this is what she's thinking.

Notice that the words here, the print looks different.

It's in italics, and that tells us that she's thinking in her head.

Here's what she's thinking.

"My name is pronounced Kareema-lay-yes-seen-a-deen.

Ugh, I hate my name.

Why do I have to have the ugly, terrible, weird, and ridiculously long name?"

Poor Kareemalayaseenadeen.

That's what she's thinking in her head, all these bad words, that her name is ugly and terrible and weird and ridiculously long.

All because it's a really special, unique name that's hard for others to say.

I'm feeling really bad for Kareemalayaseenadeen right now.

"As soon as we got home, my brother quickly started speaking.

'Mama, Kareemalayaseenadeen said she hates her name.

She even said she's mad at you and Baba for naming her something so ugly.'

'I can't believe you!'

I shouted at him, jumping up as he snickered and ran away."

When you snicker, you're like (snickers), and you're laughing at someone kind of under your breath a little bit.

"'Is that true?'

Mom sounded disappointed when she asked me.

Through clenched teeth, I answered.

'Yes, why couldn't you have given me an easy name, like the ones the other kids at school have?'

'Oh, what names are those?'

she asked calmly.

I stomped my foot.

Let's stomp our feet.

We're really mad, right?

"'Like Patricia or Jennifer or something.'

She looked confused.

'Those names are easy for you to say, but for other people, they may be hard to say.

The same is true of your name.'"

Let's think about that for a minute.

Do you think that's true?

That for some people, a name like Patricia could be easy to say, but for other people, a name like Patricia could be hard to say.

Could that possibly be true?

I think it could be true too.

Think about a name that you've heard before.

Give me a thumbs up.

Have you heard a name before that was hard for you to say, that you had to practice saying it?

Does that happen?

Yeah, that's also happened for me.

When you hear a name that you're not familiar with, it takes some practice to be able to say it right.

Let's keep reading and find out what happens next.

"No one had ever actually told me that my name was ugly or terrible and weird, but they didn't have to, I already knew it was.

When we learned about history in school, no famous person shared my name.

I would often find my friend's names in books but my name never appeared.

The characters in my favorite TV shows and movies?

Yeah, they never had my name either.

Trying to squeeze my name into spaces made for normal names was becoming a pain."

Yeah, can you see how it says name right here?

And then look at Kareemalayaseenadeen is trying to fit her name but the line ends here and she has all these letters still to write.

"I never found a bracelet, mug, or even a flimsy key chain with my name on it.

My mom tried to buy me a special bracelet but was charged additional," that means more, "fees for all the extra letters.

Then it was too long to be a bracelet anymore, so we had to change it into a necklace.

One of my classmates pointed out that my name was almost as long as the alphabet."

Did you know the alphabet has 26 letters in it?

So he's saying and telling kids, "Her name's almost as long as the alphabet."

"When he said that to the whole class, he was smiling but I was not."

Show me what your face would probably look like if you were Kareemalayaseenadeen right now, how would you feel?

Yeah, probably sad, right?

"My teachers and classmates began calling me Karma-deen.

I was too shy to correct them.

Eventually, even though I hated it, that's what I started calling myself too.

It was just easier that way."

So here you notice it says group one, Kareemalayaseenadeen, and then all these other names, Hisham, Nadia, Hussam, Maggie, are all much shorter than her name.

So she let people call her Karma-deen even though it really wasn't her name.

I think, though, that this story's gonna improve and get better.

And we're gonna find out why Kareemalayaseenadeen is a very beautiful name that she should be proud of.

So let's keep reading.

"Then in one wonderful summer, Mama and Baba took us on an overseas trip to visit family.

We spoke a different language there and got to see new places and friendly faces.

Every day felt like a new adventure."

Hmm, so she went to a place where she wasn't thinking about her name.

She had lots of adventures and she got to speak a different language when she went there.

That's pretty cool.

Do you know how to speak a different language?

Wow, if you do, it might be really cool to share that with a friend and teach them some words.

Let's keep reading to find out how Kareemalayaseenadeen does while she's in this special country visiting with some other family.

"I thought a lot about what Sittee said.

On our long flight returning home, I brainstormed a plan for how I could guide others to correctly say my name."

So look at this, she's got her nice list.

Did you ever do that?

Make a list.

And she puts a title, "Use guidance to teach my name!"

Exclamation point.

She says one, "Correct," and then she crosses out the word correct, and says "Politely correct them when they say it wrong."

That's much nicer instead of just saying, like, "You said my name wrong."

Say it politely, correct people, say it nicely.

Number two, "Teach them how to say it the way I want it to be said."

Yeah, sometimes you need to teach people something.

And again, she had written "tell" and crossed it out, just like on the front of the book in the title.

The third thing she says is she can "Break it into pieces."

That really helps, if you break something up and then put it together.

You can do that a lot when you're reading words, break words into chunks and put it together.

And then she said, "Use examples they may know, like yaseen is like yes and seen."

And then five, she put "Kind reminders."

And she was like in the middle of writing when she stopped.

"I stuck to my plan and kindly corrected anyone who mispronounced my name, teaching them how to pronounce it the way I wanted it to be said.

I started to think that maybe I really was good at this guidance stuff, which made me want to do it even more and that is exactly what I did."

Look at her here.

Remember how she talked about chunking it up?

So she has the first chunk, "Kareema," the second chunk, "lay."

Read those two chunks with me, ready?

Kareema-lay.

And let's put it together.

Kareema-lay.

"Yes."

Say yes, good job.

So now let's do Kareema-lay-yes, here we go.

Kareemalayas.

"Seena-deen.".

Let's do the last part, "seena-deen."

Now let's put it together, "seena-deen" So we have Kareemalayaseenadeen.

Kareemalayaseenadeen Kareemalayaseenadeen Look at that.

She said that because she loved guiding people and teaching them, she did something about it.

Guess what she says?

"I became a teacher!

And every year on the first day of school, I asked my students to teach me their names.

Guiding people to take pride in who they are was so important to me that I even wrote a book about it.

You're reading it now."

You're listening to it now, right?

"And my lovely, meaningful, unique name is finally in a book that I want to read."

Look at this, do you notice?

She's reading and look, it's even her book there in her hands that she's reading to a class.

And now the author, remember our author, Huda Essa gives us a job.

She says, "So now it's your turn.

How will you teach the world your wonderful, amazing, terrific name?"

Well, that's your job today, readers.

"How will you teach the world your," let's read 'em, "wonderful, amazing, terrific name?"

I hope that you do think of this story and that you feel great pride in your name and that you maybe teach someone about your name, what it's about, it's meaning.

But definitely if someone's saying your name wrong, you can politely correct them and teach them the way that you would like them to say it because you are unique and special, and so is your name and you deserve it to be said right.

Thanks for listening to this story.

It's been so fun to be here with you today and to think about names and how very important they are.

And we even got an extra tip from Huda Essa that we can chunk names to read them, just like we can break words into parts and chunks and put them together to read them.

Keep reading, readers, and have a great day.

(gentle music) - Hello readers, I'm Ms. Rodgers.

Today, we're going to listen to and sort sounds.

The TH sound is a special type of sound because it's made by two letters that each have their own sound.

But when we put them together, they make an entirely new sound.

The soft sound of TH is also called voiced.

It produces a buzz sound or you can feel it in your throat.

Like for instance, let's think about the word this and there.

If we listen closely, we hear a sound and we can also feel it.

The hard sound of TH is also called unvoiced.

It's made by putting your tongue behind your teeth or between your teeth.

And it's in the word thumb and Thursday.

Hear the difference?

Thumb, Thursday.

It's a th sound.

Now let's practice.

I'll say th, you say.

I say, th, you say.

Yes, so it's kind of funny when you hear both of them together but we can do it.

Now, we're going to start sorting some words.

Knowing the TH sound and how to write it is very important because you'll see these in many of the words that you'll want to read, and hear the sounds for many of the words that you would want to write.

You can hear the TH and see the TH at the beginning and end of words.

We're going to do some sorting right now.

Now I have some anchor words that I have for you.

Now, an anchor for a ship, it holds its place.

It helps the ship not to move around but to stay steady in the water.

So when you're not sure of what word you should put and where you should put the word, you can check with our anchor words and that'll help you to sort them.

Now let's take a look at our anchor words.

Our first anchor word is them.

Them, them, hear the buzz sound?

Our next word is thumb.

Thumb, thumb.

And if you hear the th sound, we know that the words that have a th sound will go here.

The words that have the th sound will go here.

Now, if you're not careful, you'll sound like a bumblebee when you're reading these words, but it's okay.

We're here to learn and have fun.

Okay, so I have some steps for us.

I'll say the word, you say the word.

I'll stretch the sounds, then you stretch the sounds.

I'll ask if it should go under the thumb or them.

So at the end, we will go through the words to see if we put them in the correct place.

If it sounds right and if it looks right.

Are you ready?

Okay, here we go.

Them, thumb.

My first word is there.

You say there.

Excellent, now I'm gonna stretch the sounds, there.

Your turn, there, there.

Now, where should it go?

Does it sound like them or thumb?

Yes, it goes under them because it's voiced.

All right, our next word is, think.

Think, think.

Your turn, think, think.

Voiced, unvoiced?

Think, them.

Think, thumb.

Correct, it goes under the thumb.

All right, thud.

Thud, thud.

Your turn.

Thud, thud.

Where do you think it should go?

Yes, right under thumb.

Okay, this.

This, this.

Your turn.

This, this.

Excellent, excellent, it goes under them.

Our next word is thank.

Thank, thank.

Thank, thank.

Voiced, unvoiced?

Very good, it goes under the thumb.

Our next word is those.

Those, those.

Your turn.

Those, those.

All right, you're getting it, good job.

Our next word is thin.

Thin, thin.

Your turn.

Thin, thin.

Excellent job, it goes under the thumb.

Now we have thick.

Thick, thick.

Your turn.

Thick, thick.

Excellent job, that goes under them.

Oops, does it?

I think I did that a little too fast.

Let's think about it.

I don't hear a th, I hear th, so that should go under thumb.

Thank you.

That, wow, that was funny.

That.

That, that.

Your turn.

That, that.

Now I can hear that that goes under them.

Our final one, they..

They, they.

Your turn.

They, they.

Yes, it goes under them.

Now let's see if we did it right and let's hear if we did it right.

So let's see if it's correct.

Them, there, this, they, those, that.

Hmm, I hear th in all of those words so let's give that side a thumbs up.

Now let's try the other side.

Thumb, think, thud, thick, thank, thin.

I'm about to do my happy dance.

I think we have it all correct.

Excellent, so now that we have it done correctly, repeat after me, ready?

Them, there, this, they, those, that.

Excellent.

Thumb, think, thank, thud, thin, thick.

Excellent job working with me with the voiced and unvoiced TH.

We had a great day of learning together all about the TH sound and listening to our read aloud.

Now, I want you to be sure that you keep reading, writing, and roaring.

- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the Michigan Department of Education, the State of Michigan, and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation.

Additional support by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) (chiming music)