Baloney (Henry P.)

I looooooove this story. I am a high school ELA teacher and use this book every year to teach context clues. It's corny, but the kids like it. There are several lesson ideas online using the text. I like that it incorporates several different languages into the story and the students can use context clues to determine the meaning of the unknown word. In the back is a glossary of words used and their language origin. I'd say this would be a useful text for any grade level child.

I saw this book used in a Balanced Literacy workshop as a tool to teach vocabulary strategies (i.e. in order to help know what unfamiliar words mean you can look at the pictures to help you, ask yourself does the word sound or look familiar etc...) It was an amazing lesson and my second graders were entrenched in the book. They also were engaged as they had a worksheet in front of them where they'd have to guess what the unknown word meant and what strategy they used to figure the word out. (also taken from the Bal. Lit. workshop) I would highly recommend this book to any teacher. The unknown words in it are supposed to be alien type words, but at the end you'll find a surprise. Terrific Book!

I use this book to reinforce our learning about Context Clues. This book is hilarious. It has awesome pictures. The kids love hearing it and when I read it a second time to hear those silly words, the students love it just as much. These two make awesome books together.

Baloney is the perfect addition to my context clues unit! I haven't found another book quite like this - it very explicitly requires students to pay close attention to the context of the sentence in order to determine the meaning of the nonsense word. There are multiple free online resources that pair with this book to make for a low-prep but highly effective lesson.

I used the book for context clues. The kids loved it! I’ll use it every year now.

Adorable story that my students loved. It's also good for introduction to foreign words and context clues

This book is so cute for teaching context clues! However, when I received the book it was damaged. The book was sent in a mailer that had been crinkled during shipping.

A great book for kids who love the joy of language. I used this in my classroom to introducing the teaching of context clues. Overall an excellent book. Playful and fun!