From the Preschool Book

Earthworms are my helpers, the underground gardeners. We work hard in the dirt in my garden, their home.

About the Preschool Book

Wonderful Worms will make worms seem even more fascinating for your preschooler. Learn where they live, how they hear, what they eat and how they help the earth in this picture book.

From the Reviewer

While this book may not be destined to become a picture book classic, it's a great introduction to worms for preschoolers. It's very interesting to learn that earths hear through their bodies, and that they eat the dirt in order to tunnel through the earth. Earthworms are such an important part of making compost and aerating the soil, and this book clearly explains this concept.

The text is short and simple, with no more than two lines on each page. The pictures are a split scene, with the bottom half of the page depicting the earthworms underground, and the top half shows what's above-ground. At the back of the book are several questions and answers for the more curious preschooler.

Next time you find an earthworm, pick up this book to learn more. Or read the book first and then go see if you can find an earthworm and explore it closely with your preschoooler.

Book Details

Wonderful Worms

By Linda Glaser

Reading Level: Ages 4-8

Paperback: 32 pages

Publisher: Millbrook Press; Reprint edition (March 1, 1994)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1562947303

Hi! I'm Molly Christensen, the Preschool Books writer at PreschoolRock.com. I have five wonderful children, ranging in age from 1 to 12. We own hundreds and hundreds of books and we all read a lot! I love playing games and reading with preschoolers and I often teach preschool classes. If you have a good book you'd like to recommend or just want to share your ideas and suggestions, please contact me.

Helpful Tips for Parents

• Let children choose books. Even if they always choose the same book, following their interest builds the reading habit more reliably than adult selection.

• Poetry is the highest-density language exposure available in children's literature. A poem that takes 60 seconds to read delivers the vocabulary, rhythm, and craft of far longer prose.

• Audiobooks count as reading. Children who listen to audiobooks develop the same comprehension, vocabulary, and story-structure understanding as children read to by adults.

• Children's book awards (Caldecott, Newbery, Theodor Seuss Geisel) reliably identify books of exceptional quality. Award winners are worth seeking out as a starting point for selection.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get my preschooler interested in books if they're not naturally drawn to them?

Start with books about the child's existing interests — if they love trucks, find every truck book in the library. Read with physical engagement: let them turn pages, point to objects, make sound effects. Short books work better than long ones for reluctant readers. Reading in highly comfortable, cozy circumstances (snuggled together, with a special reading snack) creates positive association with books. Never force prolonged reading against clear resistance — a 2-minute positive experience beats a 10-minute battle. Most children become enthusiastic book-lovers given sustained positive exposure over months.

My preschooler wants the same book read over and over. Should I allow this?

Absolutely — repeated reading of favorite books is both normal and highly beneficial. With each reading, children understand more: they catch details they missed, connect the story to new experiences, and increasingly delight in predicting what happens next. The request to re-read is a sign of deep engagement, not a cognitive limitation. Never replace a requested re-read with a book you've chosen — follow the child's reading lead. Boredom with a book you've read 30 times doesn't mean the child is bored.

Related reading: See also our vocabulary building guide and our nursery rhymes and literacy guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🌈 Imagination & Creativity — Entering a book's world — imagining the setting, characters, and events — exercises creative and narrative thinking that enriches pretend play, story creation, and the ability to generate original ideas.
• 🖼️ Visual Literacy — Reading pictures — interpreting what they show, what details they add, how they relate to the words — develops visual literacy: the ability to extract meaning from images that underlies comprehension of graphs, diagrams, and media.
• 🗣️ Language Fluency — Exposure to the complex sentence structures, rich vocabulary, and varied grammatical patterns of written language — more complex than everyday speech — builds linguistic fluency that distinguishes strong readers and communicators.
• 💬 Vocabulary Expansion — Books deliver vocabulary 3–4x more efficiently than conversation — introducing words children would rarely encounter in everyday speech and building the word knowledge that is the single strongest predictor of reading comprehension.

Wonderful Worms

by Linda Glaser

Pictures by Loretta Krupinski