Reading is one of the best lifelong gifts you can bestow upon a child, and we at Bob Books fully appreciate those “aha” moments. It’s what we’re all about: breaking down the process of learning to read into progressive, easily digestible steps so that both you and your child can celebrate the victories (both small and large) along the way.

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably already figured out that learning to read does not happen overnight. The magic occurs when the child “gets it,” yet there’s so much that happens behind the scenes. Reading foundation skills such as speaking in full sentences, knowing the alphabet, shape recognition, understanding the sounds that letters make, sequencing and phonemic awareness are all key for reading readiness.

You have already been developing these skills by playing games and interacting with your child in your everyday life. Alphabet magnets on the fridge, drawing letters in sand or modeling them in clay, various arts and crafts projects; all of them have been developing reading readiness in various ways. Reading to your child and talking about the story helps build awareness of sequencing. Playing sound games, singing, rhyming – these all build phonemic awareness.

So, enjoy your time with your child and know that the minutes and hours you invest helping them learn about their world can be both fun and will build important reading and life skills along the way.

Do you have a magical Bob Books moment you’d like to share? Let us know.

The five Special Collection boxes contain the original Bob Books materials boxed and reprinted in beautiful, oversized, 8 x 8 inch format. Many customers enjoy the large format for small hands, and they love the terrific price offered by Costco.

• Collection 1 has 18 books, including all the stories from Set 1, and half of Set 2.
• Collection 2 has 16 books, including stories from half of Set 2, and all of Set 3.
• Collection 3 has 16 books, and includes all the stories from Sets 4 and 5.
• The My First Bob Books Collection has 24 books, including all stories from My First Bob Books: Alphabet and My First Bob Books: Pre-Reading Skills.
• NEW! Bob Books Sight Words has 20 books and 16 flash cards, including all stories from Bob Books Sight Words-Kindergarten and Bob Books Sight Words – First Grade.

Each box also contains bonus stickers, bookmark and door hanger.

Happy shopping!

As any parent of a young child will tell you, stickers are cool! Stickers can also serve as an effective motivator and a satisfying reward for a job well done. Stickers can also track progress. Some parents make or print our chart of all the titles in the foundation reader series (Sets 1- 5) and use a sticker to mark each book that is read. This can be motivating for homeschoolers and others who like to keep track of their progression through the series. Feel free to download and print out the graphic above if you’d like to use this at home.

We included stickers in the Bob Books Collections as a ‘little prize’ so that kids can show off that they’ve read the whole book. You can also let kids place their stickers into the inside cover of a book when it is completed. We encourage repeated reading of titles to build confidence and fluency. The stickers can mark how many times a book has been read and when to move on.

You can also use the stickers for plain ‘ol fun, letting your child put them on clothing, notebooks, craft projects … anywhere. However you decide to use the stickers, the aim is to make it a positive experience. Reading should be a rewarding time with your child, building memories for both of you. The stickers can serve as an effective reminder.

Other ideas for using Bob Books stickers? Let us know.

Not so fast.

They’re not the same. Allow us to explain.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, phonics is “the branch of linguistics concerned with spoken sounds. The correlations between sound and symbol in an alphabetic writing system; the phonic method of teaching reading.”

Whereas the definition of phonetics is “the study and classification of speech sounds, esp. with regard to the physical aspects of their production; the branch of linguistics that deals with this.”

Confused?

In lay terms, phonics generally has to do with the teaching method of beginning reading instruction, whereas phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds.

We’re going to go one step further and give you another term that perhaps the most relevance to you and the process of teaching your child to read. It’s called phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is the ability of the ear (and brain) to separate a word into its individual sounds. You’d be surprised what a challenge it can be to learn the individual letters in a word if you do not have good phonemic awareness. This is where you want to start with your child.

Here are a couple of phonemic awareness games you can play with your child to strengthen this skill as you prepare for beginning reading, courtesy of our friends at ReadingResource.net.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes
Give students a word with 1-4 phonemes (sounds). Have them stand up and touch their head, shoulders, knees, and toes as they are saying the sounds in words. For example, the word “cat” would be /c/ (head), /a/ (shoulders), and /t/ (knees). A great active, phonemic awareness activity for helping students with segmenting!

Sound Scavenger Hunt
Working with a partner, have children find objects at school (or home) that begin with a particular sound. Cross off the letter and write the name of the object next to the letter. This is a great reading activity to see if children can not only find words with a certain sound, but write the sounds they hear in words.

Our ease of reading can be taken for granted if we don’t understand the skills we’ve mastered when we were just beginning. As we guide our children through learning to read, it helps that we understand the process. We can do this by supporting them through all the steps and helping them identify, hear and understand sounds in sequence.

So whatever stage you are focusing on — phonemic awareness, phonetics or phonics, it’s helpful to go slow and address each component one step at a time.

Do you have any reading tips you’d like to share? Let us know!

We’ll start with the last question because it’s the easiest to answer. The wrong amount of time is when you push your child when both of you are cranky and irritated. Every kid (and parent) is different, so there is no “perfect” amount of time that is right for everybody. Some kids are natural readers and love the attention of showing off what they know. Other kids would rather be jumping on the couch than sitting down with a book.

We happen to think that 5 minutes per day is a great place to start, even for kids who are not fond of reading, and then you can work on extending the time from there.

For kids who are ages 3 or 4, you may want to stick with 5 – 10 minutes. Children ages 5 and older may be able to sustain a longer session without getting wiggly. If you child wants to keep going, great! Learning to read is a process that can take weeks, months or even years. Be patient and make adjustments as necessary so that you are both enjoying the process.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to read Is Your Child Ready For Reading? which offers a list of pre-reading skills your child should master before you begin the learning to read process. There are lots of active ways you can practice reading skills with your child as well. Ask your child to read traffic signs while you’re driving. See if they can find the letter “M” in market when you go shopping. Ask them to draw letters in the dirt or make them out of pipe cleaners or clay. Make skill building fun and game-like, not drudgery. Most importantly, set a pace that works for you and your child, and build books and reading activities into your daily routine. Before you know it, your child will be saying, “I read the whole book!” which is a magical moment for everyone.

What has worked for you? Feel free to share your reading tips and success stories here.

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The new iPad arrives Friday and Bob Books and Learning Touch are celebrating by offering all Bob Books Apps at 50% off!  We’re also giving away 5 promo codes to 5 lucky winners!

Here’s How to Enter:

All you have to do is leave a quick comment below and tell us if you have an iPhone, iPad, or both. We’d also appreciate it if you’d “like” Bob Books and Learning Touch on Facebook.

Also… extra entries if you take our quick Bob Books survey!

Like Bob Books on Facebook

Like Learning Touch on Facebook

Follow @Bob_Books on Twitter

Follow Learning Touch on Twitter

Sign up for the Bob Books e-mail newsletter

The fine print:

This giveaway is open to all legal residents of the United States ages 18 and over. Enter by submitting a comment below. One entry per person. E-mail addresses will not be publicized online and we will only contact if you win the giveaway. No purchase is necessary. Five winners will be selected randomly via random.org from all valid entries. This Bob Books book giveaway ends on Friday, March 16 at 9 pm PST and we will announce the winners online shortly thereafter.

You’re already doing this at home and it takes just a few minutes a day. Here in the U.S. we have no shortage of books –new titles from award-winning authors line the shelves of local and national bookstores, we have excellent public libraries; heck, you can even find thousands of children’s books in fairly good condition at the local thrift shop or via Amazon.com’s handy used book sellers.

But what about the rest of the world? Literacy-based organizations like LitWorld, who just celebrated their annual World Read Aloud Day yesterday, bring our attention to the fact that 793 million people worldwide cannot read. It’s a staggering number; one that is easily taken for granted among the piles of worn and chewed on picture books that typically fill the average American child’s bedroom. While your kids may or may not be reading on their own just yet, there’s no question that you know they will.

So today, consider this. With the global economy more global than ever before, no child should have to grow up in a world without books, or denied the opportunity and magic of learning to read.

What can you do to help? Whether it’s donating to a literacy-based charity, volunteering your time, giving your extra books to a local school or organization, or simply taking the time to read to the young ones around you, you are part of the solution.

Let us know about your favorite literacy-based organizations and the causes you support and we’ll include them here.

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This giveaway is celebrate the release of a new series of Bob Books: Bob Books Early Readers.

Bob Books Early Readers are 32-page Level 1 stories that contain short sentences, words that are simple to sound out, and no unusual spellings. Great for children who have mastered Bob Books Set 3, the Early Readers contain original Bob Books stories that are warm, friendly and wholesome. The New Puppy and Cupcake Surprise! are on sale now for just $3.99 each, but we’d like to get these brand-new books to you for free! We will be giving away both titles to one lucky winner this Friday.

Here’s How to Enter:

One winner each week will receive both The New Puppy and Cupcake Surprise! Please leave a comment below and share with us one of your favorite earliest learning to read experiences (either yours or one you witnessed from a child).

Extra entries if you take our quick Bob Books survey!

Here are a few more ways you can connect with the magic of learning to read and with Bob Books:

Like Bob Books on Facebook

Follow @Bob_Books on Twitter

Sign up for the Bob Books e-mail newsletter

The fine print:

This giveaway is open to all legal residents of the United States ages 18 and over. Enter by submitting a comment below. One entry per person. E-mail addresses will not be publicized online and we will only contact if you win the giveaway. No purchase is necessary. The winner will be selected randomly via random.org from all valid entries. This Bob Books book giveaway ends on Friday, February 17 at 9 pm PST and we will announce the winner online shortly thereafter.

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We are thrilled to announce the release of a new series of Bob Books: Bob Books Early Readers.

Bob Books Early Readers are 32-page Level 1 stories that contain short sentences, words that are simple to sound out, and no unusual spellings. Great for children who have mastered Bob Books Set 3, the Early Readers contain original Bob Books stories that are warm, friendly and wholesome. The New Puppy and Cupcake Surprise! are on sale now for just $3.99 each, but we’d like to get these brand-new books to you for free! We will be giving away both titles to one lucky winner each week, from now until February 17.

Here’s How to Enter:

One winner each week will receive both The New Puppy and Cupcake Surprise! Please leave a comment below and share with us one of your favorite earliest learning to read experiences (either yours or one you witnessed from a child).

Extra entries if you take our quick Bob Books survey!

Also – here are more ways you can connect with the magic of learning to read and with Bob Books:

Like Bob Books on Facebook

Follow @Bob_Books on Twitter

Sign up for the Bob Books e-mail newsletter

The fine print:

This giveaway is open to all legal residents of the United States ages 18 and over. Enter by submitting a comment below. One entry per person. E-mail addresses will not be publicized online and we will only contact if you win the giveaway. No purchase is necessary. The winner will be selected randomly via random.org from all valid entries. This Bob Books book giveaway ends on Friday, February 10 at 7 pm EST and we will announce the winner online shortly thereafter.

So whether your goals are to focus on is kindergarten preparedness, to get a young one ready for preschool, or to work on some important early literacy and pre-reading skills this year, we have a few tips to get you off on the right direction.

1.  Read to your child every day. Who doesn’t love a great story? From babies to older kids, any time spent reading to a child is quality time. Research shows that even just 20 minutes per day can build early literacy skills, promote bonding, and increase listening and attention spans – all necessary skills for school and for life.

2.  Share your love of books by taking your children on a trip to a public library or bookstore, keeping books in your home and providing opportunities for your kids to see you enjoying reading – whether a daily newspaper, a magazine, the latest sci-fi thriller or an e-book download. Lead by example.

3. Make it a game. Reading and books are fun! Play around with language by coming up with on-the-spot games like “tell me everything you can think of that starts with the letter P…” sending the kids on a word treasure hunt around your house, tell a story using flash cards, have them stir up some alphabet soup, or sort shapes – all of these activities are easy (and basically free). The best part is that you’ll be helping them develop important pre-reading skills without your child even being aware of it.

4. Exercise patience. Refresh yourself on how to identify the signs of when your child is ready for reading, and introduce new concepts gently at your child’s pace. When your child first begins to take steps into reading, allow them the time to figure out concepts on their own and ask you for help. If your child is interested, pays attention, interacts with the book, and seems to have an idea of what you mean, then you are on your way to reading. If your child is wiggly, disruptive or gets frustrated easily, they may not be ready. Put the books away for a few months and try again later. Children learn at different rates. It is important to find your child’s rate, rather than your own, if you want your child to have a happy reading experience.

5. Praise often. There’s nothing more exciting than witnessing a child grasp reading concepts – when the words come alive on the page and the child makes the connection between letters and the sounds they make and then how letters form words that tell a story that they can read all by themselves! Offer plenty of praise for every milestone (big or small) and keep encouraging (not pushing) your child to gently progress to the next level. Here is a great video example showing some techniques you can use at home.

6. Keep going! We have some book recommendations for children who have “graduated” past Bob Books Set 5. For school-age children whose reading level has exceeded early readers and short chapter books, now is a great opportunity to talk to a teacher, librarian or bookstore owner and get even more recommendations. If your child is “stuck on a genre,” encourage them to go outside the genre and read in other topic areas that interest them. See if you can join a Mother-Daughter Book Club (or a Father-Son Book Club or any variation thereof) as it’s yet another great way to share the joys of reading as a family. If you don’t have one in your area, think about starting one!

What are your reading resolutions? Please share!