DRAMA: Roald Dahl

Since I was little I have loved reading, and one of my favourite books have always been The Witches and Matilda, from Roald Dahl. I really like the story itself but also the original illustration. Even now that I'm 26, all the summers I still like to read this books, they bring me nice memories.

Now that I have to analyse this books from a teacher's point of view I have get to some conclusion. Of course that they are really nice books, interesting for children because they are about topics they are interested in (witches, magic...), but maybe preschool students will be too young to understood the complete meaning of the story, but I think that we can try to make it easy for them by creating readers to simplify the text and make it shorter, and telling the story one chapter per day. We can also show them the pictures that appear in the books so that they can imagine easily what the stoty is about.

I really love the Little Red Riding Hood Roald Dahl's version. The end is so funny and original that children will love it too. This revolting rhyme is much more easy for them because it is shorter and they already will know the story, so it will sound familiar to them. I think it is a good idea to make children repeat some parts of the text like "What great big eyes you have, Grandma" and to represent the scene, so that children will have even more fun. We can even prepare a small show for other students or for the children parents, we can use puppets... Being the story so easy and short give us a lot of possibilities to work with it. 

I have found in youtube the following video which, in my opinion, should be show to the students, to make the story even more atractive. 

The same can be done with the Cinderella revolting rhymes, because the children also know the story already. But, in my opinion, the vocabulary in this story is much more difficult than in the previous one, even for me was quite difficult to understood the story and I have to look for the meaning of some words. Maybe this story should wait until primary.

I have left for the end the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because I have never like this story in particular. As I have said, when I was litlle (around 9 years) I loved to read and my mother bought me all the popular Roald Dahl's books, but I dont know why I never liked the Charlie's one and I didn't finish it. I really like how the story begans with all the golden money hidden in the chocolate squares. But once they are inside the factory, I can't find the attractive of all those strange rooms. When I saw the movie, I didnt like it either (I hate Johnny Depp) but I did like the end. 

I suppose I will have to make an effort and give my students the chance to discover Charlie's chocolate factory and maybe when I am a teacher, I will start loving the story, who knows. As the two in the beggining, it is a really long book, so for very young learner we should create a good reader much shorter and with nice and representative pictures.