The Little Red Hen

"The Little Red Hen" is an old folk tale, most likely of Russian origin. The best known version in the United States is that popularized by Little Golden Books, a series of children's books published for the mass market since the 1940s. The story is applied in teaching children the virtues of the work ethic and personal initiative. It is so well known that it is frequently rewritten by pundits and bloggers to illustrate their favorite points.

Role in Reading Instruction

During the 1880s, reading instruction in the United States continued to evolve to include primers that became known as literature readers. Prior to this time highly moralistic and religious texts were used in the teaching of reading. "The Little Red Hen" offers a transition to less blatant religious and moralistic tales while still emphasizing a clear moral. During this time, considering the interest of the young reader becomes more central to the teaching of reading. In considering the young reader, the authors of this genre made their texts appealing visually both through illustrations and text formatting. "Margret Free and Harriette Taylor Treadwell were the first authors to prepare beginning readers with a content consisting wholly of adaptations from the old folktales." (Smith, 1965/2002, p.141). The genre of the folktale lent itself to repetitive vocabulary - an early reading strategy still in use today.

Plot summary

In the tale, "the little red hen" finds a grain of wheat, and asks for help from the other farmyard animals to plant it. No animal is willing to help. When the wheat matures, she asks for help to harvest it, then thresh it, then mill it, and finally bake the flour into bread. At each stage she gets no volunteers. Finally she asks who will help her eat the bread. All the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer, but she declines their help and eats it with her chicks, leaving none for others.

The moral of the story is that those who show no will to help contribute to an end product, do not deserve the end product.

See also

*The Ant and the Grasshopper, Aesop's fable with a similar moral
*"The Wise Little Hen", a Disney-produced Silly Symphony which uses this tale as its basis.

External links

* [http://www.storyresources.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=351 The Little Red Hen DIY Magnet Story Resource] from [http://www.storyresources.com/shop/ Story Resources]
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18735 The Little Red Hen and other stories] , Retold and Illustrated by Florence White Williams, 1914, from Project Gutenberg