Title: Coloring Your Way to Better English
Author: Larry W. Hilliard
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1-5320-8667-0
Genre: Educational / English
Pages: 76
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Pacific Book Review
Many adults who have grown-up with English as their primary language, may find themselves being guilty of taking for granted so many of the odd-intricacies of this rather cumbersome language. Yet for children growing up, or others studying English as a second language, a strong foundation in the building blocks of words, sentences and the proper use of tense are important. Author Larry W. Hilliard has compiled dozens of lessons on the proper use of English with a very non-presumptive and rather unique methodology in his book titled, Coloring Your Way to Better English.
Coloring, and learning English, really are two totally different activities, however when combined in this workbook-style publication readers are forced to “slow-down” on the paging of the book due to the pre-requisite of having to color in the line drawings. By slowly going through these lessons, the memorization and understanding of so many details regarding the proper use of words in a sentence is “drilled” into the readers’ minds.
Beginning with the basics, such as defining nouns, verbs, and adjectives, the author next brings it up a wrung by working with past, present, and future tenses. Then after completing a series of lessons, he quizzes the readers to use their crayons to answer a group of questions. The result is a very powerful English course, laid out in just a few pages, however with an amazing ability to have readers recall the information due to the interactive approach.
The author has 6 rules when using this book, each providing patience, encouragement and working with the child in the challenge, taking all the time that is necessary, and celebrating once completed. The bibliography lists many sources from other educational authors, showing the maturity of the information as being proven to achieve results.
So, get out your Crayola crayons and sit down with your child and go through Coloring Your Way to Better English. You’ll be amazed how much they will learn in such little time!
