A Dozen Dogs: A Read-and-count Story

by Harriet Ziefert, Carol Nicklaus (Illustrator)

A dozen dogs frolicking on the beach introduce the numbers one through twelve

Genres: Childrens, Mathematics, Counting, 1st Grade, Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 1985

About the author

Harriet Ziefert grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey, where she attended the local schools. She graduated from Smith College, then received a Masters degree in Education from New York University.

For many years, Ziefert was an elementary school teacher. She taught most grades from kindergarten to fifth grade. "I liked it," she said, but she stopped teaching when she had her own sons. When her children were older, Ziefert wanted "a bigger arena" for her work. She went to work at a publishing company, Scholastic in New York City, developing materials for teacher's guides for kindergarten language arts and social studies programs.

"About twelve years ago," says Ziefert in a 1995 interview, "I tried to get a job as an editor, but no one would hire me as a trade editor. So I decided to write my own books." Since then, she has written several hundred books, mostly picture books and easy-to-read books. "I write books very quickly," she says, "in about twelve hours. I rewrite them three times over three days, and then they're done." She writes about twenty books a year.

Reviews

[Kia M.]

This is a great book for your students who are beggining to read. This book is also filled with lots of numbers so it could also be used with a counting and addition math lesson.

[Amanda Walker]

A Dozen Dogs is an early reading book for children learning to count to one dozen. The story begins with 2 dogs going to the beach and as the story progresses mire dogs are added in until there becomes 12 dogs total. As dogs are added in they are described by how they look. Once the dogs get to the beach the story tells how they do different activities such as jumping off a raft and going fishing. This book is an easy read with many repetitive words and phrases as well as using basic words. The story also includes pictures that cover the entire page and use lots of color. This is a very good story for young readers learning to count while making it into a story that uses easy vocabulary for the rest of the words.

[Jamie]

So cute!

[Dolly]

This is a cute book about dogs at the beach. There are three "chapters" or short stories about going to the beach, swimming, and going fishing. The narratives are short and easy for beginning readers and children can read the whole book at once or just a chapter at a time. The cartoonish illustrations are colorful and fun and help to depict the various addition problems that are described. I like that this book centers on counting and adding, but has a bit of a story to help make the counting fun. Overall, this book is much too easy for our girls, but we still had fun reading it together.

[Rosa Cline]

This is a level 2 'math reader'. My almost 3 year old granddaughter and I enjoyed reading this as a storybook but also it helped me help teach her to count. AND wonderful way to introduce adding and subtracting without being in the readers face. Teaching small, big, and some colors. Teaching the children without them knowing they are learning. It took me a moment to realize that they were teaching subtraction that's how well it was written; how fun this book is. The illustrations are great as well. This is a good learning book.

[Cws]

JEAR1-Zie

[Christina]

This is the first book I ever read!

[Nicole Holden]

This is a cute and simple easy to read book. This book would be great for simple addition.

[Susan Lower]

Cute little story for your preschooler or kindergarten age child. Lots of counting!

[Spencer]

My research into good books for tiny children continues....

[Anne Robertson]

Great for simple addition and counting. Creates good number sense as more dogs join the party.

[Angel Lederhause]

good book for kindergarten!!!