Preschool Book Review - Big Shark's Lost Tooth
🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 📚 Pre-Reading Skills — Activities that involve letters, sounds, rhymes, and print directly build the phonological awareness and letter knowledge that are the two strongest predictors of successful reading development.
- 🌐 World Knowledge — Background knowledge about the world dramatically accelerates reading comprehension — children who know more understand more of what they read — making every content-area learning experience a literacy investment.
- 😊 Love of Learning — Positive early learning experiences build a child's identity as a learner — and children who see themselves as curious, capable learners approach school with the engagement and resilience that matter more than any specific skill.
- 🧠 Memory & Recall — Remembering rules, retelling a story in sequence, and practicing skills to automaticity builds working memory and long-term recall — the cognitive foundation that learning in every subject depends on.
From the Preschool Book
“Dear Tooth Fairy, My son, Chomp, has lost another tooth. He would be so happy if you would visit him. I know you are very busy. We live at the bottom of the ocean near the Bahamas. Here is a map.”
About the Preschool Book
Chomp, a little lemon shark is disappointed that the tooth fairy doesn’t come when he looses his first tooth. His friends tell him that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t come to the bottom of the ocean. When Chomp’s mom pretends to be the Tooth Fairy to cheer him up he is angry. He wants the Tooth Fairy to visit him just like she visits other boys and girls who live on the land.
Lemon sharks loose an entire set of teeth every week, so Chomp doesn’t have to wait long for his next tooth to fall out. This time, his mother secretly writes a letter to the Tooth Fairy telling her about Chomp and asking if she would please come to the bottom of the ocean to visit him.
The Tooth Fairy is fascinated by the idea of visiting a lemon shark at the bottom of the ocean and brings Chomp a special gift that he will always remember.
From the Reviewer
Big Shark’s Lost Tooth adds a twist to the typical Tooth Fairy story. Preschoolers love the idea that the Tooth Fairy can go to the bottom of the ocean to visit the little shark. The little shark’s mother loves him very much wants to do anything that she can to make him happy.
The brilliant illustrations in this book are attracting to preschoolers and include fun additions such as a Jawz poster and a Florida license plate. The wonderful undersea setting will have your preschooler mesmerized.
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Helpful Tips for Parents
- Learning environments matter. A space with accessible books, puzzles, art supplies, and natural materials at child height encourages more learning than a child-proofed empty room.
- Answer "why" questions fully and honestly. A child who gets real answers to their questions develops deeper curiosity than one whose questions are dismissed or oversimplified.
- Screen learning (educational apps and videos) supplements but never replaces human interaction as a teaching medium. Learning happens most efficiently in social, conversational contexts.
- Curiosity is more valuable than knowledge. A curious child who doesn't know the answer will find it. A knowledgeable child who has lost curiosity will stop learning.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should formal education begin for preschoolers?
Play-based learning is the developmentally appropriate educational mode for children from birth through age 6–7. Formal academic instruction (sitting at desks, worksheets, direct phonics drills) before age 6 consistently produces short-term knowledge gains but long-term motivation losses. The children with the richest preschool play experiences often outperform academically drilled peers by age 8, when the developmental advantage of play-based executive function development becomes apparent in school performance.
How do I know if my preschooler is learning enough at home?
Developmental milestones (not academic benchmarks) are the appropriate assessment tool for preschoolers. Verify your child is meeting age-appropriate milestones for language, motor, social-emotional, and cognitive development using your pediatrician's well-child visit assessments. Preschoolers learning through play, conversation, books, and daily life engagement are learning more than their standardized test scores will later reflect. Concern is warranted if a child shows regression in skills previously mastered, or fails to meet speech and language milestones.
Related reading: See also our read-aloud guide and our kindergarten readiness guide for more ideas on this topic.
