Dinosaurs Help Children to Learn to Read

The team of teachers, parents and dinosaur enthusiasts at Everything Dinosaur get involved in all sorts of dinosaur and prehistoric animal projects, helping out schools, educational bodies and museums with lots of fascinating activities.

Our staff get asked to advise on the preparation of teaching resources, prepare quizzes, proof read materials, help write books and so on.  It is certainly a challenging job working for Everything Dinosaur, you never know what each day will bring.

Take for example a project we have been working on since the middle of January, working on a dinosaur book for children.  We have been asked by a UK based publisher of text books targeted at schools; to advise and assist with the production of a new dinosaur themed book to help young people learn to read.  A great deal of money and teaching resources are being dedicated to improving the reading skills of young children, prehistoric animals are popular and they make an ideal theme for a story book.  This new book will be available later on this year, it features a number of prehistoric animals – Brachiosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus and of course Tyrannosaurus rex.  Other animals featured include Diplodocus (we used the new Diplodocus from Carnegie Safari to represent this animal) and Oviraptor.

Our experts have advised on the mix of prehistoric animals and they will also have a role to play checking the story and the factual information included.  Choosing the correct models to feature can be difficult, the animals have to be accurate and represent a typical impression of the dinosaur in question as well as being photogenic and acceptable to the studio team who have to work with these models under the lights.

Dinosaur Models

A number of the models we chose came from the Bullyland Museum Line range.   This range of scale models are very detailed and make ideal models for collectors as well as being great for creative play.

Three of the Models used in the New Educational Dinosaur Book

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The Bullyland range is authenticated by the palaeontologists and researchers at the museum for Natural History at Stuttgart, Germany.  Bullyland have an excellent reputation for designing accurate models of prehistoric animals.  The detail on the model is ideal for use in books and the models are robust, substantial and able to cope with the arduous conditions of being under studio lights.

The photographers wanted models that were flexible in the way that they could be used, good for long shots as well as close up work which would show their details.  The models in the picture are Tyrannosaurus rex, a 1:30 scale model, the large Brachiosaurus in the middle of the shot and an adult Apatosaurus which are also in 1:30 scale.

To view the individual models:

Dinosaur Toys for Boys and Girls – Dinosaur Models: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.