Do you remember when you were very young?  Even before you
could read you knew the words to your favourite storybook by
heart. You soon began to associate the sounds of the words
with the letters on the page. Bit by bit, you were learning to read. 

It's called sight vocabulary - associating the sounds of
words with how they're written. And by putting a musical
twist on that concept, Lori and Tom Neufeld (a.k.a. Lulu and
the TomCat, family entertainers) are helping children learn how to read.

"I've always thought that it was a lot easier to learn stuff
if I sang it," says Lori, a grade two/three French Immersion
teacher in Morden. "Why not learn how to read that way?"
Neufeld started to come up with songs that her students
could easily learn and combined them with colouring
songbooks. By doing various exercises with both the songs
and the books, including playing a Wheel of Fortune game to
fill in missing sounds or getting the kids to make up their
own stories to the pictures, she soon found that her
students were both more motivated to read 
and were learning how to faster.

Soon, Sing-A-Books were born. Children learn the song and
then start to associate the words of the song with the words
on the page. As they colour the accompanying pictures, they
further learn the meanings of those words.
"They can learn how to read but sing as they're reading,"
says Neufeld.  "They attach the musical sound to the word."
Neufeld notes that music has all the fundamental building
blocks of literacy - rhyme, rhythm, and repetition.
"It's a natural way to read," she says. "Music is such a
natural thing for kids.  They're not afraid of it."
Once the children realize that they can actually read the
words from the song, says Neufeld, they gain the confidence
to read other things and start to see how much fun 
reading can be.

"They start to make up their own melodies when reading
(other) books," says Neufeld, noting that music makes the
entire process a little bit easier.

Neufeld, who has also taught junior high and high school
students, recalls many older students who had just never
been bitten by the reading bug, and so did more poorly than
their bookworm counterparts.  Getting children interested in
reading at an earlier age, she says, 
results in better learning skills later on.

"Once they're hooked on reading and learning, they're way
ahead of the other students," she says. "I think if you can
get them hooked at (a younger grade), they'll be fantastic students."

Other teachers have begun to notice Neufeld's techniques and
use them in their own classrooms. 
And the concept doesn't just work for children, adults have
found the musical learning beneficial as well, as
demonstrated when the Winkler adult education program used
Sing-A-Books to help immigrants learn to read English. 

This coming school year, Neufeld will also be starting a
pilot program at Morden's Maple Leaf School to further
develop the concept in the classroom.

Currently, the Neufelds have created three Sing-A-Books, all
relating to Lulu and the TomCat songs. Kids can pop one of
their CDs in the player (the duo have two with a third one
due out later this year) and follow along in the companion
book, or they can learn the song through the sheet music
included with the books. 

Creating the books is a "team effort" says Tom, with Lori
coming up with the songs themselves, either using classic
children's tales for inspiration or by creating her own
stories, Tom doing the layout, and former high school
students of Lori's, Justin Krahn and Natalie Kalashnikov,
doing the illustrations.

More Sing-A-Books are being created to match songs from the
albums All the Cats Were Playin' and 3,2,1 Kadoozee. The
Neufelds are also creating a number of similar books in French.

Right now, Sing-A-Books are only available through the
couple's Web site at www.luluandthetomcat.com. The Neufelds
also hope to start selling the books with their respective
albums in local stores and at their various concerts across Manitoba.