My daughter has begun to take an interest in reading. She always liked being read to, but now she’s picking out a couple words that she knows and preempting me when I’m reading. I asked a couple parents of older children – who also happen to be much, much more thoughtful caregivers than I am – if they had any idea on how I could foster this interest in reading. They smartly suggested that I introduce my daughter to Bob Books (I thought the Manson book would be a good reading primer but I was overruled) She has a pretty good handle on the alphabet, so we started with this set:
For lack of a better term, I’d call these books a reading “system.” We started with the “Beginning Readers,” set. For your reference, I would not have called my daughter a reader before I purchased these books. The books start with introductions to easy-to-sound-out / memorize words put into short sentences. The books pair different, similarly-spelled words which provide context for new word recognition (sit, sat, hat all within a couple pages, for instance). Over 12 short (8 page) books in each set, the books introduce new and longer words, additional sentences and punctuation marks. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s the straight dish right from Bob’s website.
How it Works
Bob Books was designed to give young children the tools to cross from learning letters to reading words. Our award-winning beginning reader book sets start slowly and progress from books with three letter words, to books with more than one sentence per page. Because we meet children at the right level, parents are often amazed at how quickly their child is able to sound out words when reading their first Bob Book.
I was amazed to the point that my normal dumbfounded look appeared at least 150% more dumbfounded. My daughter was really reading the first book, after about 5 minutes of practice. I can assure you she was doing nothing close to this before I handed her the book. Within a week, we’ve graduated to book 6 of 12 and each night I’m once again shocked at what she’s able to read. Based on where she was reading-wise 10 days ago, I’m confident that this transformation has less to do with natural aptitude and more to do with the effective manner that these books teach a child to read.
I could describe Bob books to you further, but they’re $14.99 and I’d bet that in the last week you’ve spent $14.99 for worse causes than teaching your child to read, so just go out and buy the alphabet or beginning reader set and get started. Have you stumbled upon any other interesting ways to engage your young reader? Let us know in the comments!
Chris Jordan