Are you as excited as I am? Since Set 5 is the very last set of Bob Books, I get this sense of anticipation about starting it. If your child hasn’t already, this is the time that he will likely start landscape reading — what I mean is, he’ll start reading the words he sees around him — the names of stores, for example. He knows so many rules now that it’s hard not to start reading on his own! It’s an exciting time, and by the end of Set 5, he won’t know all the rules for the English language, but he will know all of the most important ones.

In this first book, which is called The Game, you might want to prep your child a little if your child doesn’t know much about baseball. I had one child who had no clue what was going on, and it would have been super helpful if I had told her in advance about bases and bats and such. To this day, I don’t know why she had never understood baseball, but consider yourself warned.

Beyond this, the book is really stepping it up a notch. There is a lot of review — more rules used per page, bigger words with more syllables. Your child may need some help. So the first rule is: don’t help too soon. The second rule is: don’t let him flounder too long. It takes wisdom to know where one rule leaves off and the other begins, but both rules are still good ones to follow.

So here are the lessons:

Lesson One

• Introduce new sounds: be prefix, tch
• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 1 (“The Game”) pp. 1-6

Click here for tips on introducing words with a be prefix.

Click here for the binder card introducing the tch sound.

Lesson Two

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 1 (“The Game”) pp. 7-ff

Lesson Three

• Review appropriate sections in the binder.
• Read: Set 5, Book 1 (“The Game”) pp. all