Aiden is learning to read. And although we’ve worked on the letters and sounds I think the most useful thing I’ve done is read to him out of easy readers. He sees the words like he would with sight word cards. Once he knows a word he reads it and I read the rest. To encourage early reading, we’ve been using five types of books and started to see some progress in his learning.
Learning should be fun. When you make learning fun it takes less time and sticks longer than repetition alone. So far we are choosing books that are meant for early reading. These are our top five types for my active boy.
Five Types of Books to Encourage Early Reading
We like books that are simple and also have meaning and value. Some you’ll probably recognize and some are really good books from new authors. Feel free to check out some of them at your local library or head over to amazon to buy or read on your kindle.
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Kindle Unlimited Membership PlansEncourage Early Reading with Simple Books
My mom used bob books to help me and my three brothers learn to read. These books are so simple. They tend to use sight words and one other ending so they are easy to sound out. They avoid long words and use short sentences. With practice, he’s reading these on his own.
These books can be made by you too. If you can make a stick figure you can make your own “bob book”. Just pick an ending your child is struggling with and make up your own simple stories to help them learn. My mom also wrote a bunch of little books too. They helped me and my brothers learn to read.
Books with Rhyme and Rhythm
Doctor Suess’s books are full of rhyme. If you’ve ever read Fox in Socks you know how annoying long and rhyme-y they can be. That kind of rhythm and rhyme can really help new readers learn. The patterns make it easy to memorize. Not necessarily easy to say.
One of Aiden’s favorites from a new author is Silly Milly. He’s got a large part of this book memorized.
Books with Meaning
Books with a great message are perfect for early learning. It’s not just about learning to read it’s also good to build social skills and teach healthy character traits.
I deeply love the You Can Be series. This series is all about being amazing as a child. Each book teaches positive attitudes and good behavior.
Related Post: You Can Be Book Series Review
Books with Value
We read Bible stories. Some from the Bible and others from storybooks meant specifically for kids. Books that hold that kind of value are deeply important for raising decent little humans. Regardless of your religion or beliefs if you want your child to have a sense of morality you should read something that teaches right from wrong.
Encourage Early Reading with Fun Books
Aiden loves books with cars, trucks, and things that move. He loves his favorite characters too. Daniel Tiger, Pete the Cat, Splat the Cat, Little Blue Truck, Curious George, and Stinky and Dirty are favorites.
It always comes back to making learning enjoyable. If your child loves a character get the series if there is one or write something yourself. I love Curious George books and feel like I completely identify with the Man in the Yellow Hat.
Related post: Story Time at the Local Library
Five Types of Books to Encourage Early Reading
Regardless of what you pick, reading can be one of the hardest things to learn. Remember to be patient. Everything comes in time. Before too long it will be comic books and novels and textbooks. Enjoy learning and have lots of fun with your child’s favorite books.
Have you read any of these? What books do your little ones love? Do you write little stories for your early reader? Or are you a new children’s book author? We’d love to hear from you. Comment below.
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I’ve been looking for books just like these for my 5 year old who is still struggling to read. These are wonderful. I’m going to look into which ones i want and get some for Christmas. Great post thank you!
Thank you for the recommendations. We loved the Bob Books series too. They are very helpful and it kept my daughter interested.
Will check the other picks you shared.
This look like great books to read. I think rhyming books are always the best to learn from.
We’re huge Pete the Cat fans over here and those were my daughter’s fave first books. So glad I bumped into this list, as I’m in the middle of writing down titles to get for my littlest one. It’s so true – these early reading days are fleeting and just like my eldest – their reading interests shifts on to comics and novels which is great – but you just can’t beat those early reading days together!
Great post and great list of books. Going to check out your recommendations.
Such a great list! I love the rhythm and rhyme types of books right now with our kids! Children’s books are just so much fun to read.
My son’s favorite books when he was learning to read was Pete the Cat. His kindergarten class was decorated in Pete the Cat. So cute!
These are some great options! I will have to check them out for my daughter!
Bob books are a great start into reading … My kids loved the little words formed simple stories.
Thank you for sharing this, my daughter is 4 years old and just started pre-kindergarten. I’m almost ready to start teaching her to read. I’m bookmarking this post to use later. But I love the idea of all of these books, I honestly didn’t know there were 5 different types of books to help children learn to read.
I love these suggestions. I think the most important thing, though, is not so much WHAT you read to your kids, as it is THAT you read to them, early and often. And interactively. Both our girls were reading before K, and I think some of that had to do with our tracking along with each word (using our finger) as we read to them, and asking them questions about the pictures that went with the text (“Five pumpkins! Can you see all five? Let’s count them!…) and sounding out the big words as we traced them while reading. They got an early sense of the connection between sounds and letters that way.