Wednesday, September 29, 2010

New Monic Books: Vocabulary Cartoons Word Power Made Easy

Image 1 This has been a very fun book for me to review! Vocabulary Cartoons by New Monic Books, Inc. uses mnemonics in the form of hilarious cartoons and rhyming words. We have enjoyed Vocabulary Cartoons (grades 3 and 5) . This is helping with the children's reading comprehension and, in our state, standardized testing.  Vocabulary Cartoons promotes learning by association and not just memorization. Check out some of the sample pages.

The composition of the book gives you 21 word lists with 10 words per list. There are 10 cartoons per section and then a 10 question review quiz. Though not officially broken up into chapters each word list is clearly grouped. So you could say to your child "Please read Review #6" and they could find it on their own and begin reading that section of study words.

My son enjoyed the pictures but did not really pick up the book to read it. So for our use I would assign word lists for him to read. We did not do the quizzes because he had a good understanding of the meanings after reading the cartoons.

Since this is a skill area we are working on for him in this year (5th grade) it has been a useful tool for us. I think I would rather if the book was set up like a dictionary so that we could use it as a reference book to look up words to use when writing papers but the book is like a workbook and we just adapted it to our particular needs.

If you have a reluctant writer who uses the same words over again, this would be a highly recommended resource to add interest to their writing and encourage them to learn new words in a fun way. The company has a large variety materials. This particular books is for grades 3-6 and sells for $12.95 before tax, 245 pages.

Any products reviewed by me as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew have been given to me free of charge in order for me to provide you with an honest review of the product and/or how I used the product within my family. I do not receive any other form of compensation for the reviews posted on this blog.

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