Annie and Helen : a children's book about Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Abstract

This book for children was written so that young readers would be able to read the story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. During research for the project, I read other books for children written on this subject and quickly found that there were very few which could be read by early readers. I therefore planned to write a book at the independent reading level for third grade children, the instructional level for second grade children, and the listening level for first grade children.The book is also accessible to students with disabilities - specifically hearing impairments - whose language delays may have led to low reading levels. I wanted these children to also be able to learn the story of Helen, because she is such an excellent role model for students with similar disabilities. I knew, though, that students in the upper grades (fourth, fifth and sixth) would not want to read a book for young children. I understood the embarrassment for them to be seen by their peers reading a picture book. For this reason, I wrote the book as a chapter book, so that it does not appear juvenile.To make the book accessible to young readers and low readers, I very carefully controlled vocabulary, sentence length, grammatical and syntactical structure. I deliberately avoided structures such as idioms which are difficult for students with language delays. In designing the layout of the book, I was careful not to break sentences in the middle of concepts or phrases. In all these ways, I wrote the book so the children with whom I enjoy working most would be able to read it and learn the story of these two remarkable women.