Bob Books for Beginning Readers

As you are most likely aware, there are a few, important steps and early literacy foundation skills that are necessary for reading. First, your child needs to know the alphabet and the sounds associated with each letter of the alphabet. And then, the ability to hear and identify different sounds in spoken words (otherwise known as phonemic awareness. If this sounds too technical, it doesn’t need to. Bob Books are exceedingly simple!  Once you’ve established that your child is ready for reading you will likely discover that the learning to read process becomes an organic, enjoyable and confidence-building experience for you and your child. This is the magic of Bob Books.

Bob Books work sequentially:

My First Bob Books build important pre-reading skills mentioned above like the alphabet and sequencing. My First Bob Books: Alphabet tunes your child’s ear to the sounds letters make and My First Bob Books: Pre-Reading Skills introduces shapes and patterns to build awareness of letter shapes and groups.

Next in the progression are the Bob Books Foundation sets, designed for beginning readers. Each set builds upon the previous set, with enough repetition (so reading becomes comfortable and easy) and new material (so the child stays interested.) The stories contain silly and mischievous characters and simple plotlines that will make children giggle. The illustrations are intentionally simple and childlike. The books themselves are sized perfectly for little hands. Numbering the books and boxes creates a sense of progress and accomplishment for your child.

And now, a bit of info about each foundation set:

Bob Books Set 1: Beginning Readers contains just four letters in the first book so your child can easily sound out all the words (Mat, Sam, cat, sat etc.). New sounds and letters are added gradually, until all the letters of the alphabet are introduced (except Q).

Next, Bob Books Set 2: Advancing Readers uses three-letter words and consistent vowel sounds in slightly longer stories. Again, repetition is used throughout as a way to continue building confidence.

Consonant blends, endings, and a few sight words mix things up and advance reading skills in Bob Books Set 3: Word Families. The use of word families help make longer stories more manageable.

Once you’ve found that your child has mastered Sets 1-3, longer books and more complex words will continue to engage and challenge your young reader in Bob Books Set 4: Complex Words. New word blends, more sight words and longer words advance their skills, while sound repetition still keeps reading easy.

The final set in the series, Bob Books Set 5: Long Vowels introduces the important new skills of long vowels and the magical silent E. Reading vocabularies will grow quickly as your child begins to master the longer stories. Upon completion of Bob Books Set 5, your emerging reader is now ready to move onto chapter books!

What’s next after graduating from Bob Books Set 5? We’ll cover this in an upcoming blog. In the meantime, be sure to let us know your favorites and recommendations.