You will think I'm making this up, but I'm not, it really happened! A few minutes before the mailcarrier brought the review copy of Set 1 of the BOB Books to our door I had been sitting at the computer with Kelvin, my five year old, typing some words. He enjoys just randomly typing letters and numbers in a Word document and on that day (which happened to be 8/28, exactly a month ago), he had just accidentally typed the word "big" and read it, so I started typing other words which began with different letters/sounds so he could read them the same way he had just read "big." Here's the list I typed and read together with him:Big
Pig
Dig
Fig
Wig
Rig
Gig
Jig
Zig
(zigzag)
While we were reading these we heard a noise in our mailbox and went out to get the mail. I was so excited when I realized it was our copy of the BOB Books by Bobby Lynn Maslen and John R. Maslen which were recently reissued. We sat down and immediately started reading them together. The first page of each book introduces the new sounds that appear in the book (with a drawing of a word that begins with that particular letter) and then the child can read a simple story with short words (most only 3 letters long) and whimsical illustrations that help him/her follow the actions the words are describing. Best of all, this is not your typical boring beginner reader story -- these simple tales are really humorous and fun to read and we were smiling to each other while we read. Most importantly, Kelvin was encouraged to read -- something he had never really done before, except "sight reading" of words he had memorized such as "stop" and the name of everyone in our family.
Kelvin has since started kindergarten and we even brought the BOB Books to show to his teacher in the second week. We haven't yet been able to finish reading the whole box, but in that first sitting we read four or five books in a row and have since read a few more. We will most probably be buying the other sets in the coming months since I'm sure these books will help Kelvin become a proficient reader.
Thanks to Mother Talk for the opportunity of being included in the book tour, even without the gift certificate -- these books were a great gift to our family!
Hmmm. I've been reading these reviews and thinking, eh. The books sound kind of boring and repetitive to me (though I'd like to see some actual pictures from the pages-- maybe they will have a Search theis book feature on Amazon?) But it does sound like people are liking them quite a bit. I wasn't going to try to teach pedro to read in English yet, but this sounds simple (and it also sounds like it might complement, rather than hinder, his learning to read in Spanish.) What is your thought about that?
ReplyDeleteI know you speak Portuguese, not Spanish, but what I want to avoid is a) letter combinations that in English have different pronunciations depending on the word-- meaning, I'd like to see only letters and sounds that are very consistent and straightforward
and b) letters that have very different sounds in English from Spanish. Obviously the vowels are different, but I don't think that would be so much of a problem.
Anyway, maybe I will look into these books after all.
Bob books ROCK! You will love them. My eldest used them in pre-school for pre-reading work.
ReplyDeleteI'm wishing we had them at home. I'm so impressed you got hooked up with them. :)
Fabulous reveiw! Wonderful timing. Isn't it SO EXCITING to see them start to put it all together? It is one of my favorite things about parenting. We love the Bob books too.
ReplyDeleteWe used those when my kids were little, they are very very good....The girls weren't mad about them, but they are good.
ReplyDeleteA great next step are the Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant.
Excellent stories, and designed for early readers. Even as an adult I enjoyed them and Susie Stevenson's drawings are brilliant.
Nice review. Thanks.
Anyone recommend an equivalent of Bob book series in Spanish (for native speakers)?
ReplyDelete