I really like your blog. I taught preschool and was a director of a early learning center for many years, so I knew when my son was ready to read I was going to get the bob books. I was not too sure though how exactly go about teaching him to read with these. Your blog. is great and has helped me stay on track. My son is flying though the books (he pretty much already knew all the basic sounds of the letters) Anyway, I was wondering if you have recommendation of books that would be good to read during bob books and after bob books. My son loves the bob books but is asking to read other books too. My son has received some books that claim to be earlier reader books but there always seems to be words in them that are too difficult for someone just starting out to read.

Ah, books! My favorite subject!

My current students are (obviously) still in the Bob Book stage, and so I’m not offering a whole lot of variety here at TRWBB. When the time comes, I really will explain in detail as we transition to reading other books.

Disclaimer: We have a library full of books, and the children are free to look at them anytime they like. I find both girls trying to read books that are “above their level.” This is great! Even though we keep the lessons methodical and orderly, this doesn’t mean that every book that crosses their paths needs to be exactly fitting where they are at on the reading continuum. In other words, don’t be afraid to hand your child books that are “too hard.” This is how they learn to read harder books.

I have a few resources to point you to for reading ideas. First, my favorite easy readers are those by Arnold Lobel, especially his Frog and Toad collection. Also, The Baldwin Project has many wonderful out-of-print children’s books available for free online–I like to print off traditional folk tales when I find them. You can also keep checking the Good Books category on this blog.

We keep a One Hundred Books Chart for each child in our family, and long before I started this blog, I posted my son’s first one hundred books over on the Afterthoughts blog. This list will give an example of how a child flows through Bob Books, to easy readers, all the way to reading “normal” books. My goal is to have the child reading great literature by age ten.

Whenever I need fresh ideas for books, I first check the lists over at Ambleside, to make sure I haven’t missed anything along the way. Ambleside is the free curriculum I use to instruct my own children. I also like to reference the 1000 Good Books List. Fairy tales, nursery rhymes, folk stories, and legends, are big favorites with children–don’t forget James Baldwin! His works, such as Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Fifty Famous People, and Thirty More Famous Stories Retold are favorites in our home.

Have children read real, living books, and it will only feed their desire to know and to love the world around them. It will inspire their imaginations, and learning will be rich and rewarding.

Whatever you do, don’t kill their souls by feeding them a diet of shallow little books such as Pinkalicious. There is a world full of good and great books just waiting to be met!