Early readers with specific vowel patterns

[Clemsondana]

I've written before about the kids that I volunteer with.  Over the summer I'm going in once a week and working with kids who need reading help.  A few kids just need practice, and some younger ones are working on consonant sounds.  I'm find with both of these groups, but I need help with the kids who seem to have consonants but don't understand vowels.  They seem to figure out the consonants and then try all reasonable vowel sounds until they get an appropriate word.  I would love to systematically teach phonics - I used Hooked on Phonics with my kids and know that there are other effective programs that I could try.  But, due to the nature of the program I'm not guaranteed to get the same kids every week and I only have a few weeks anyway.  I've settled on the idea of picking a few vowel rules, like 'adding e at the end' or 'ea sounds like ee' , to teach to a kid and then let them practice reading  little kid book that uses that rule a lot.  

Does anybody have favorite little kid books that correlate with specific rules?  I have a lot of Seuss and board books in a storage box that I plan to look through, and I don't mind buying a few things if I need to.  I know that I can find printable pages, but these kids need the success of feeling like they've read a book, even if it is super simple.  And, I've learned that they don't have some of the same 'babyish' associations that my kids did - they don't associate board books with toddlers, or consider Thomas the Tank Engine and Sesame Street to be 'little kid' things because they didn't do them as little kids...so anything goes.  The finishing-second-grade kid that I worked with yesterday was thrilled to work on Seuss and the nonsense words helped me to figure out what she didn't know, but I'd love suggestions for other books to try, or specific book/rule pairings.  They are happy to read even if I have to fill in some bigger words - as long as they get through many words on the page, me supplying the big words doesn't seem to phase  the kids at all.  This is more like 'crisis reading intervention with a short deadline, with a dose of confidence building' which is not how I taught my kids, so any input is appreciated.  Even if i can't use it this summer, I volunteer here during the school year and might be able to use it then.  

[knitgrl]

Maybe the Nora Gaydos books? I know you wanted to avoid printouts, but my son spent a really long time on CVC words before he took off reading and it was so hard to find readers that just focused on those, so I relied on the readers found here: https://www.freephoneticreaders.com/ My son also really liked the Sam Readers.

ETA: There are also some more difficult readers to be found at http://www.funphonics.com/

Edited June 23, 2020 by knitgrl

[domestic_engineer]

Free to print booklets:

• I see Sam books
• progressive phonics
• Don Potter has created small readers within his Blend Phonics materials

books to buy:

• Not exactly what you’re asking for but ... The pyramids inside Reading Pathways
• The Phonics Comics series
• silly sally 
• Mo Willem’s books, especially the Cat the Cat series. Sometime Elephant and Piggie books will work too. 
   

[domestic_engineer]

9 minutes ago, knitgrl said:

Maybe the Nora Gaydos books? 

Yes!!!!!  This!

[Clear Creek]

Definitely the Nora Gaydos books. They can be found on Amazon, but here is a good description of the series and what each level covers.

[Clemsondana]

Today was my first day with the Nora Gaydos books and they were a hit!  I used level 1 with a couple of kids and level 2 with a few more.  They are the perfect length for what I'm doing, and the kids seemed to enjoy them.  They very much liked that they got through 1 or 2 whole books.  

[ktgrok]

These readers are great - https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/phonics-and-early-reading/american-language-readers/

Another option is to use some of the free printables from Abecedarian - they have a lot of focus on the vowel sounds. This is an example of one such section - scroll to page 2 to see how it works. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57891644bebafbbe871a567f/t/57a4ff86b3db2b8908e9b49e/1470431111874/ABCD_B1_I_Spy_during.pdf

[goldenecho]

So, I know you aren't looking for print outs, but ProgressivePhonics have printable readers that are based around specific word patterns.   Their intermediate readers have a lot of vowel patterns, and they are color coded so that you read some and they read some.   They might be a good start.

Here are other books I can think of (with the vowel teams or phonics rules they are good for)....

ALL basic short vowel sounds
- Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss 

ee
- Sheep on a Jeep
- The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

oo
- We Are In a Book by Mo Willems (This one has several oo words, but they do have two different sounds.   There is of course "book" several times, but there is also look, good, and cool (cool is l controlled).  
- Dooby, dooby, Moo.
- Free printable book dealing with the two sounds of -oo (Very nice one, with color pages.)  
- The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Which-Witch-Was-It-Picture-Book-ebook-Phonics-Activities-for-oo-2155366

Open syllables (he, she, go, a, I) *
- Hop on Pop (just e ending words like three, see, tree)
- Go Dog Go (go, no)
- No David (just has no, but has it a lot)
-Jack and the Beanstalk (nearly all versions have the nonsense words fee-fi-fo-fum which all follow the open syllables rule). 
*(Remember that "to" and is a rule breaker here.   It should rhyme with "Joe" but in stead has the oo sound.   The is also sometimes a rule breaker, depending on how it's pronounced.   Both of these show up in Go Dog Go.   They don't in Hop on Pop.). 

In case you need consonant combos...
sh - The Fish Who Could Wish. 
ck - Click, Clack, Moo

NOTE ON MO WILLEMS BOOKS - The Elephant and Piggie ones are great for reading as a team (you read one chartacter's part, and they read the other...or two children can each take a part).   This has been motivating to my kids and a child I tutor too. 

Edited July 16, 2020 by goldenecho