These colorful little books designed for very new readers come four per set in nifty little slipcovers. Sets like Meet Dinah Dinosaur and Hello Tabby Cat! each feature a main character who quickly becomes a familiar friend after just a few readings.
Brand New Readers tend to favor a whole-reading approach to learning to read. Many of the words are "sight words" (like knot and one) - words that are not easily decodable by simple sounding-out. The for-parents instructions on the inside front and back covers of each book encourage caregivers to have their children look at the pictures in order to make out the words. Using cues from the illustrations, beginning readers will analyze the picture as they read.
These books are exceptionally high on appeal, which is important for encouraging children to want to read. But be aware that children relying on a phonics-based approach to early reading will not be able to decode many of the words here. Some others will intuit what the words must be and won't absorb the actual words they are "reading". Parents may choose to watch that kids do not skip the words and encourage them to study the words more carefully in order to remember them. You can easily determine if a child is relying too heavily on the picture cues at the expense of word/letter cues when, for example, he/she "reads" pond when the word is actually lake.
A few simple games can be helpful for assisting early readers to pay attention to the more difficult words in a story. For example, after reading a book, you can ask your child to find all occurrences of a particular word that is repeated often, say "the" or "eats". Or you can see what kind of new and silly sentences you and your child can generate from the sentences in the book by using your fingers to block out some of the words. These games helped our tester, who was relying very heavily on picture cues.
A big plus of this series is plenty of repetition of words and phrases, such as "Tabby cat plays with her tail./Tabby Cat plays with a ball./Tabby Cat plays with a string." The stories are short, featuring only one sentence per page- an extremely helpful feature! Children want to feel like they have accomplished something and shouldn't feel overwhelmed in their early attempts to read. This way, they can master an entire book, and no one has to remind them that they've actually read a very short book! Brief but sensible instructions for parents are included, and these always encourage them to ensure children are having fun as they learn.
In contrast to Bob Books, the pictures in Brand New Readers are vivid and meant to be "used", whereas the simple black-and-white pictures in Bob Books don't call as much attention to themselves, thus placing more emphasis on word cues. The text in BNR is very predictable and repetitive, and the creators seemed to go out of their way to make it easy for children to "pull out" words from the pictures.
My first child learned to read by concentrating on sounding out easily decodable words before moving on to sight words. My second child never really took off using a phonics approach to reading, but did when she started to essentially teach herself to read, attempting a whole-reading approach. Though a combination of both approaches is probably best, it should be no surprise that different children learn to read in different ways. As such, it makes sense to offer children a variety of early readers to choose from, and to pay close attention to each individual child's style of learning and progress. It is a good idea, too, to arm kids with basic phonics rules at an early age so that they can turn to these when they need to. If your budget permits, I'd recommend picking up a set like Bob Books (see our review) as well as Brand New Readers at once, and observe which ones your child responds to best.
The little stories' endings in Brand New Readers are either funny because they can be anticipated, or because they catch children unaware with a silly conclusion. This is especially clever - children will have not only finished reading a whole book, they will have stumbled upon a surprise, so they literally finish the book with a giggle! For example, after tabby cat has a grand time pulling, throwing, looping, and rolling in yarn, she's made herself a scarf! Dinah Dinosaur, after discovering all sorts of things both big and little, doesn't notice the last big item - a hole. It is touches like this that contribute to kindling a joy of reading in the earliest of readers.
We looked at sets starring Dinah Dinosaur, Winnie (the dog, not the Pooh), and Tabby Cat. Of course, children who own a pet cat or dog will especially enjoy the readers featuring these pets at play. Even with the restricted vocabulary and much-needed repetition that is expected in early readers, these stories still manage to playfully capture situations familiar to little pet owners. The dinosaur? Well, she's just plain fun.
