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Sound It Out
Along with her background as a researcher, writer, and teacher, Joanne Meier is a mom. Join Joanne every week as she shares her experiences raising her own young readers, and guides parents and teachers on the best practices in reading.
Cats on Mats: Beginning readers
Anna started to read last week. She's been gathering lots of prerequisite skills along the way, and last week I saw the light bulb go on. "Mom," she asked, "can you make me a pile of books that I can read? I want them on my nightstand, like you have." What mom-former-teacher-university-professor could turn down that offer? So, we gathered. Mind you, Anna wasn't interested in gathering books she had already memorized. She wants the kind she has to work on. She treats sounding out words as a game. So here are some of the ones we gathered.
Brian Wildsmith's Cat on the Mat was the first one I pulled off our shelf, then The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat and My Cat, a book about a cat who loves to nap (I'd provide the Amazon link but Anna took the book to preschool, and there are 2,438 results on Amazon for "my cat" and "children's books"!).
Others she worked on with varying levels of interest and success Hop on Pop (a little long for her), I Like Books , The Fox on the Box and a handful of Bob books.
Care to add any to our stack? Anna's criteria: "You know, books that I have to read, not know by heart!"
