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Curently I am an occupational therapy assistant in the Alachua County Fl school system, but I would love to be writing full time....I have been writing poems and rhyming stories all my life but I never took them seriously....it was just something I did...which sometimes kept me awake at night until I wrote down whatever was dancing around in my head! I was the person that people always asked to write a poem for some reason (birthdays, retirements, etc.....anyone out there relate????) Anyway, most of my poems up until then were more from a teacher's perspective about children, funny things that happened to teaches because of their students. After moving from the school office to the classroom I started working with children who struggle with reading. It opened my eyes to what children seem to like reading the most. (and what they DIDN'T like reading!) It also exposed me to many incidents that happened at our school which made children giggle.....me too! For example.....There really was a frog trapped in our bathroom at school....creating havoc!) Being in that environment gave me a lot of story ideas....and kids to share them with! (There is always a "critter" or something funny to write about if you keep your eyes and ears open!) I guess most of my stories are about "creepy critters" because I am a "survivor" of 2 sons and 2 grandsons and there is ALWAYS some kind of creepy critter lurking nearby that they had adopted! (but my world is changing....I now have a grand daughter and there is no such thing as too much pink!) But....back to reading.... I believe teaching children to read and enjoy reading should be fun and having stories they enjoy will make them want to read. Children not only enjoy reading or listening to stories that have rhythm and rhyme to them, but they also remember them (we all remember all those nursery rhymes we grew up with, but do you really remember the stories in your first grade reading book???) For children who are non-readers, it is a fun way to learn letter sounds which is essential for beginning readers. Reading rhyming stories aloud to todlers helps better prepare them for learning to read. They tend to remember rhyming words and recite along with the reader, giving them a feeling of accomplishment and an enthusiasm for reading. My first rhyming book called "There's a Frog Trapped in the Bathroom" opened the door for me to a whole new world which I am having so much fun with! I absolutely love doing author visits in schools and I carry lots of stuffed frogs with me for fun (Frogs seem to have become my trademark.....okay they call me the "Frog Lady" but the remember it and that's what counts :-) I stamp lots of little hands with frogs and hold a "frog adoption" (I'm getting so many frogs I have to find homes for them!) I also have students work together to write a verse with me. I start them with a couple verses to a story called "There's a Gator in Our Gutter" (something I wrote after a series of huricanes a few summers ago leaving lots of little lizards which look like minature alligators running in and out of our drain pipe....not a "Florida Gator"!...yes I know I work in Gainesville but no connection to the Gators which we all love in Gainesville! :-) Anyway...students work together and brainstorm to come up with their own lines which they vote on to create their own rhyming verse. They have lots of fun and are always very excited about the verse they create. It's also a lot of fun to see what they come up with. I start them out with "There's a Gator in our Gutter" and then they come up with the 3 lines that follow....I actually had 3rd graders come up with "There's a Gator in our gutter, Disco dancing with a bug...He's wearing polyester, doing the hustle with a slug!" How's that for creative 3rd graders! They had a blast....so did I! I do this at every school now. For more information about having me come to your school, please check out my website at www.susanesnyder. com I hope to hear from you soon.
"Hoppy" Reading!
Susan Snyder, "Rhyming Writer"

Curently I am an occupational therapy assistant in the Alachua County Fl school system, but I would love to be writing full time....I have been writing poems and rhyming stories all my life but I never took them seriously....it was just something I did...which sometimes kept me awake at night until I wrote down whatever was dancing around in my head! I was the person that people always asked to w... More