Oct 27 2008
Early Reader Books part 1: Bob Books
I mentioned our favorite website for great, fun, phonics reading stories and activities, in my post Our Favorite Phonics Website , and I’ve mentioned a few other titles my kid loves from time to time, but I thought I’d list some other great early reading books in their own posts.
First are the “Bob” books. I guess these are actually very popular books, yet I only learned about them by overhearing two other moms talking at a homeschool park day. They are very short, and are grouped in increasing difficulty. Set A is simpler than set B, and so on, then there is book, 1, 2, 3, in each set. The books are small, and the illustrations are very simple line drawings. I remember reading someplace that the drawings are intentionally very simple so that the kids can reproduce them if they want to. The first time we used a “Bob” book, we got to volume 3 or 4 when I realized my daughter had been tricking me by figuring the story out from the pictures, and not really reading the words. I think she said ‘blanket’ when the book said ‘rag’. But now that we’ve moved on to the next set, she uses the pictures for clues, but does actually need to sound out many words.
