If you have kids who have begun reading early here are some really fun books to get them started. As both a parent and a teacher, I’m only going to mention books that my own children have enjoyed and which I think have helped them improved their reading – and for very early readers this basically boils down to books from two sets of publishers.
Oxford Reading Tree Books for Early Readers
The first is the Oxford Reading Tree set of books, published by Oxford University Press. These are excellent books for early readers which follow the funny lives of a group of children, their parents and a daft dog named Floppy.
The stories are written at different grade levels and become more challenging books as your child develops their reading skills.
The first books use very simple vocabulary and short sentences and the higher level books are written with more complex sentences and vocabulary and with a lot more words to read on the page.
They are delightfully illustrated on every page and, because they are in hardback, last a long time which helps when they get read over and over again. Ours have lasted through both children.
The first books use very simple vocabulary and short sentences and the higher level books are written with more complex sentences and vocabulary and with a lot more words to read on the page. They are delightfully illustrated on every page and, because they are in hardback, last a long time which helps when they get read over and over again. Ours have lasted through both children.
From a teacher’s perspective, I like them because they focus on keywords for reading development and the lower level books start with the phonics sounds your child will need to tackle first and before move to more complex sounds.
The illustrations give good guidance to what is happening in the story and because they follow the same characters it leads to the child having a better understanding of the story. There is also a book for parents which gives good ideas of how to use the books for developing reading at home and lists the kinds of activities you can do.
There must be a couple of hundred books in the range so it’s impossible to list them all here. However, you can buy them individually, in small packs of 6 or 8, which is how we started, or even in jumbo packs of 78, if you want a library full (which you may get through over a couple of years or so as your child improve’s their reading skills.
Get Oxford Reading Tree Books Here
Amazon.com
Usborne Books for Early Readers
The other publisher I have chosen for very early readers is Usborne. There are two sets of books we liked from this publisher. The first was their Usborne Phonics Readers which are funny little stories written in rhyme and which again focus on particular phonics sounds which children need to learn to read.
These too are beautifully illustrated and have opening flaps on some of the pages. The collected stories, ‘Goose on the Loose and other Tales’ and ‘Fat Cat on the Mat and Other Tales’ are the ones we have at home. These come with hard covers with padding, so they can withstand a bit of throwing around.
The other set of Usborne books is the Usborne Very First Reading Books. Like the Oxford books, they too are very well written and fun to read.
They are illustrated too and also get more challenging as children rise through the different levels. However, they use rhyme more frequently in how a story is told and unlike Oxford Reading Tree, not all the stories follow the same characters. Again, there are a lot of books to choose from, they can be bought individually or in box sets.
Get Usborne Books here
All opinions in this review are our own, however, we may be compensated should you make a purchase through the links provided.
