Good Books for Beginning Readers

Phonics Books have benefits for early readers, but can cause problems if a beginning reader is only given phonics books.

Benefits
Reading phonics books gives a child practice paying attention to letter to sound relationships. The repeated phonics rules and patterns in phonics books give a child practice sounding out words. A child learns to pay attention to letter to sound relationships.

Problems
However, if phonics books are the only books a child is given to read, there is a danger of a child becoming a word caller. Word callers are so interested in sounding out a word that they forget to think about the story. Some phonics books use unusual words or sentence structure to include similar sounds or phonics rules in one short story. When stories don't sound like how a person talks, many children aren't able to understand and enjoy the story. They become word callers, not readers.

Authentic text early reader books have benefits for early readers, but can cause problems for beginner readers too.

Benefits
Authentic Text or whole language books are stories written without attention to repeated phonics rules and patterns. Whole language books for early readers have simple language and are easy enough for a child to read most words. Many children learn a few sight words and can use sight word knowledge to help read these stories. There are strong picture clues and a flow of language that helps a child figure out difficult words. Many times a child is able to guess at a word. Children who read these stories are exposed to more words and real language.

Problems
The problem with too many whole language books is that some children begin to rely on guessing at words, knowing words by sight, and ignoring letters instead of sounding out words. As a child gets older, books stop having as many picture clues. Books at higher levels have more and more words. Children can only memorize so many words before they need to start reading. Remembering a memorized word and reading a word using letter sounds requires a different part of the brain. Children are not able to pay attention to the story and keep switching back and forth. Some children figure out phonics and sounding out words without specific teaching or phonics books, but others don't. If you know a child who is guessing more than reading, please check out this page.

I've taught in public schools, trained and worked as a Reading Recovery teacher, tutored children with reading, helped my own children learn to read, and researched best practices to teach reading. Children learn to read in different ways. Children will struggle in different areas of reading. Children will learn to read if given good books to read with a supportive adult who knows a little bit about how to help. Learning to read takes practice. Books can and should be read more than once. A child should spend time reading everyday. I've written a few lenses here at Squidoo sharing what I know about helping a child learn to read. I'm writing more all the time. Check out my profile now and in the future for more information.

Most beginning readers do not read fluently. Early readers are learning to sound out words. Eventually a child will recognize words quickly and sound out words quickly.

Studies have shown that children who learn a word by sounding it out will remember and read a word quicker than if they learn a word by shape. I like to compare learning to read with learning to run. A baby will crawl before running. There are many skills and combining of thinking required to read fluently and understand what is read.

Beginning readers can be exposed to fluent reading by listening to books. Parents, teachers, caregivers, and older siblings can read fluently to early readers. There are some great free online stories available to increase the number of stories an early reader hears.

I'm sure I read some favorite books to my kids 100 times or more. Click on this link to find a blog post I wrote with good books to read to children and some of my three children's favorite books. Most of our favorite books are taped and torn.

Beginning readers will read fluently with repeated readings of favorite books that are not too difficult. Having a child read the same book a number of times is one of my favorite ways to help beginning readers combine reading skills and become confident fluent readers. If you buy good books for a beginning reader, these books will be read many times.

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