(In case you don’t know the story, there’s a link to an animated version of the book below.)Īt first glance, it seems quite a simple tale, but the more you read it, the more ways you’ll find to exploit it in an EFL class for young learners. It works really well if you’re preparing students for Trinity Starsor any end-of-course show. I really like using Rosie’s Walk with young learners (see link below). But it really helps to have a story everyone knows as the backbone for staging a show. It’s a great stimulus for the memory game ‘I went shopping and I bought………….Teachers who’ve been to my workshops know how much I like improvisation and student-devised stories. I have also used Don’t Forget the Bacon in the classroom. I have also used it as part of a Farm topic. I have made class books and wall friezes to show their version of the story. falling into a puddle) and then wrote a short sentence about what was happening. The children drew a picture of something they thought could happen to the fox (e.g. I have also used Rosie’s Walk in the classroom as a stimulus for creative writing and art. I would definitely recommend this book for children who are learning to read, there are so many clues in the pictures to help them decode the very simple text.

They are good for introducing farmyard vocabulary and on a first reading it is fun to ask the child if they can predict what will happen to the fox next. The simple pictures have a distinctive style and use predominantly browns, greens and yellows with a splash of red and orange. As a small child she was just amused by the trouble he got himself into, she found the bag of flour falling onto his head particularly funny. It is only now that she is older that my daughter realises that the fox’s intentions are less than honourable. Rosie is completely unaware of the fox’s presence but it is his actions that provide the humour (the fox falls in the pond, trips over a rake, gets covered in flour and straw). The story relies heavily on the pictures to show the action and some pages have no text at all. Rosie’s walk is a simple story that appeals to young children but is also great for older children who are starting to read. Unbeknown to her she is being followed by a fox who gets into various kinds of trouble before being chased away by a swarm of bees. The Story: Rosie, the hen, goes for a walk around the farmyard. I have read it to my daughter since she was small and now she is excited that she can ‘read’ it by herself, there are less than thirty five words in the story so it is a great book for a beginner reader. I often borrowed Rosie’s Walk from the library as a child and bought my own copy when I was doing my teacher training.

Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins