Confessions of a Bad Kindergarten Mom (and Bob Books)
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As you know, JJ is in kindergarten and I’ve been frustrated with her school’s lack of differentiation and reliance upon worksheets during reading time. I couldn’t believe how little JJ could read. We needed reading help. Luckily, Bob Books saved me.
When I asked a trusted reading expert to assess JJ in reading and the results shocked me — JJ was at a preschool reading level and didn’t know half the kindergarten sight words. The expert game me a sight word list, and a book and encouraged me to practice with JJ at home.
Now you’re wondering why I didn’t know this – either about her level or the sight words. I should have been keeping up, you’re right. We had done our sight word wall for a few months, I thought she knew them. But, not so much. Not when it’s not practiced or reinforced – by me or the school.(Duh, right?) I knew better.
However, in my defense, one of the reasons, besides just sucking as a mom, was my worry about pushing her too fast, too soon. Having read enough research on learning disabilities caused by pushing academics at early ages, I didn’t want to push her until she was out of the worksheet environment and showed an interest in reading. But, I really should have been doing something at home besides just reading aloud to her.
So, when Bob Books asked if I wanted to try their early reading sets, I gladly agreed, hoping their books would give me a place to start with JJ for our reading time at home.
We started with Bob Books Set 3, Word Families.
Every day she read two Bob Books books to me. We worked on using her finger to track – she hated that – and decoding.
* Also, I made her a set of sight-word flashcards that she didn’t know on key rings and we reviewed all the others she had learned and added a new one each day.
I really liked the Bob Books and how it made reading accessible for JJ and me. Plus, the books are short and sweet. I liked that the last pages of each book tell you what the book introduced, for example in Cat and Mouse from Set 4, some of the new concepts listed are: “blends: sn – snap, th – that, st – stop, lp – help, ck – back.”
Have you seen Bob Books? Physically, they’re small. The illustrations are line drawings with only a few splashes of one color per picture. I wondered if the illustrations would be a turn-off for JJ but she liked them — and LOVED them on the iPad because reading the word correctly meant the pictures got colored in.
Bob Books Sets 1 – 5
Set 1 – Beginning Readers (12 books)
Set 2 – Advancing Beginners (12 books)
Set 3 – Word Families (10 books)
Set 4 – Complex Words (8 books)
Set 5 – Long Vowels (8 books)
Each set of books includes hints for teaching your child to read and ideas for the specific set.
Bob Books Sight Words
These books use the common sight words, three new sight words are introduced in each book. Plus they come with two-sided, sight word flash cards. (The sight words are an example of something a child must memorize since they often aren’t decodable and therefore a time when I do endorse flash cards.)
I’d love to win these books for my nephew.
I would love to win these books for my grandson. They had just came out when my son was small and he will be 21 this month. wonderful books!!
My kids were less enthusiastic about the Bob books because of the lack of plot but they are great for rhyming and thus decoding with clues. I like these books too,
Best Books for Just Learning To Read at http://www.pragmaticmom.com/?p=3053
Frogs in Clogs
Cat at Bat
The Good Bad Cat
etc.
I hope JJ likes these too!
I had this exact same issue when I was teaching my 5 year old. He loved to do work with me, but did not remember the letters or words a week later. That is why I developed the Two2Read.com reading program. I feel that some children can learn to read by just learning the letters and sight words. Many others need a multi-dimensional approach that takes in several different methods of teaching reading and writing and make it fun. I would be glad to share this program with you Melissa. Let me know if you want to try it with your child.
Best of luck.
Alida
I have a 2nd, K, Pre-K & 3yo — we would LOVE these around our house!! I am looking for programs to keep them on track over the summer so no one “slides”
Have already gotten “getting ready for Kindergarten & 1st” books from Cedar Valley Publishing, wow they are great! Hoping to add to our summer collection….