Today we’re teaching Bob Books Set 1, Book 4. This book is called “Mac” and technically it only introduces one new sound — the sound made by the letter B.

Now, the nice thing about the letter B is that it’s consistent; it only makes one sound. It isn’t noisy like those vowels that are always saying something new an unexpected.

So why did I say that technically the book only introduces on new sound? Because it also begins to use the word the in sentences. Before, we only read the word in the The End on the last page, which didn’t even feel like reading.

So the question becomes what to do about this. Do we teach it as a sight word? If yes, does that get confusing? And the isn’t actually a sight word. There’s a rule for it. If we don’t teach it as a sight word, isn’t it too complicated of a rule to introduce?

I have gone back and forth and back and forth over this. Book 4 has caused me no end of angst. But it hast to be dealt with — a decision must  be made — because future books are going to continue using the word.

This time around, I went ahead and taught the rule. I sort of held my breath. Was this child going to freak out about a sound combination — a veritable digraph, even?

Thankfully, we pulled it off without any issues. I briefly taught him the concept of the hard-th sound, but without giving him an extensive word list. Instead, I gave him one word, and he’ll collect more words (which we’ll add to the card) as we go.

So here are the lessons:

Lesson One

• Introduce new sound: b
• Build some words and practice sounding them out: bad, bat, bam, bad
• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 1, Book 4 (“Mac”) pp. 1-3

My binder card looked like this:

Lesson Two

• Introduce new digraph: hard-th
• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 1, Book 4 (“Mac”) pp. 4-6

Here’s my binder card for Lesson Two:

Lesson Three

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 1, Book 4 (“Mac”) pp. 7-ff

Lesson Four

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 1, Book 4 (“Mac”) pp. 1-3

Lesson Five

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 1, Book 4 (“Mac”) pp. 4-ff