The Paka Mdogo Books
Exciting stories... Amusing characters... Comprehensive literacy resources...
The Series
You may already know that Paka Mdogo (Little Cat) is the first book in a series of adventure stories for 7- to 12-year-olds. The second book, The Gradual Elephant, has just become available and will be followed very shortly by The Meerkat Wars.
Although they fall into the category of 'stories for children', the books hold considerable appeal for people of all ages, and if you have not already bought a copy of Paka Mdogo, we hope you will do so - if not for yourself, then for a young reader you know. (You can always borrow it back from them...)
The stories are very entertaining; but they are also, in their own distinctive way, serious: they raise, indirectly and gently, a range of issues of great importance to us all as members, young and old, of the human race. They will thus appeal not only to younger children but also to older ones, who want to be entertained but who at the same time are beginning to think about some of life's difficulties. 'Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.'
To place an order, use the 'Buy at YPD Books' buttons above. To read a sample chapter of any one of the books, go to the appropriate Resources page (see below).
The Resources
The main purpose of this extension of the LitWorks.com site, however, is not to publicise the series but to provide support to teachers who wish to use one or more of the books in the classroom.
We have developed a complete set of materials to amplify the effectiveness of the texts as a classroom resource. They principally take the form of study tasks linked to each of a book's chapters. The tasks are challenging, engaging, and currently tied in to the United Kingdom's Key Stage 2 National Literacy Strategies. They are presented in tabular form so that teachers can easily see which of the Literacy Strands they are linked to, and match them to the needs of individual students, groups, or whole classes.
The study tasks are designed to be used on a page-by-page basis, and are wholly flexible, so that they can be employed in a variety of ways and settings:
o Students reading a book independently can be directed to the tasks best matching their level of language skill, as a way of supplementing what they have taken from the reading process itself.
o Teachers adopting a book for whole-class Novel Study will find that they can use the materials to fully open up the possibilities of the text for their students, across a wide range of ability levels. The study tasks give attention to reading and comprehension, language awareness, thinking skills, individual writing (both creative and expository), open discussion, dramatic presentation, and simple literary judgement.
o At a practical level, and since the study tasks are page-linked, the teacher can ask students (individually, in groups or as a whole class) to read a particular page and then respond to the matching study task. Responses can then be self-assessed or teacher-assessed, and discussed as appropriate.
o The fact that the resources are provided in digitised form means that they can be accessed by students on computer, and also displayed (and worked with) on smartboards.
o The materials can be safely recommended to parents who wish to assist their children with reading and general language development.
(Parents: if you would like to help your son or daughter gain maximum enjoyment and benefit from reading the Paka Mdogo series you may also wish to use the resources - selectively, of course: the last thing we would want to have happen is for a young reader to miss out on enjoying the stories as stories, because they've become homework instead. If your child's school is using a book in the classroom, you should consult the school before making any use of the additional materials.)
The PakaMdogo.com website will shortly 'go independent' of LitWorks.com; and as part of that we hope practising teachers and other educators will make suggestions for its development, and contribute materials they themselves have produced to support their work with any or all of the Paka Mdogo stories.
In the meanwhile, we are pleased to offer, through the links below, the resources we have put in place to help students enjoy the first and second books, and to assist teachers in their lesson preparation.
The Gradual Elephant Resources
A note for schools outside the U.K. system, and in particular US, and International Baccalaureate PYP and MYP schools:
The fact that the resources are aligned to a particular national system of education should not make them any less attractive to teachers working in different contexts. Their alignment is largely a matter of structure and organisation, and the skills they help develop match the objectives of all good, progressive English teaching for those year levels. Additionally, the first story begins on the campus of an international school...
Thank you for considering adopting the Paka Mdogo stories for your classroom. If you have already purchased one, thank you for that, and best wishes for your work with it.
We'd be pleased to have your feedback on either the books or the resources: wordsmith@clix.pt
To place an order, use the links beneath the book covers at the top of this page.