The Bob Books

Reading is something we've done an extra lot of as of late. Of course we always read a lot, but the difference is that now about half of that reading is being done by Calvin himself. At this point he is now reading a variety of books we have in the house, mostly the easy readers of yesteryear, like Hop on Pop, by Dr. Suess, or Snow, by P.D. Eastman, but before he started working his way through the longer books we started with books intended to teach reading and phonics. It was on a trip to the library a couple of weeks ago that he first asked to bring home a set of phonics books and I spent some times perusing the collection there, only to be disappointed by the number of books more interested in selling a branded character (like Clifford, Bob the Builder, or Thomas) than teaching the skill of reading, but there was one collection that was entirely devoid of that commercial culture so we brought it home. Turns out we were pretty happy with that selection. The Bob Books we had (and clearly we didn't try all of them) were a good workout for the new reader and even had somewhat interesting stories. I'm sure I was slightly drugged by the joy of watching my son discover reading, but these books were actually enjoyable for both Calvin and for me. Win win.