Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have to admit, when I first got the Bob Books for my son, I was very excited about them. I thought the gradual pace of vowel and consonant introduction would make reading easier and give a natural progression. My 4-year old son read the first 3 or 4 books in the series, we were both excited, and all was well. I was thinking 4 or 5 stars. Then within a week, my son refused to read the books. I knew that he could - he was certainly capable - but anytime I mentioned them, he would whine, complain and tell me that he didn't want to. This from the boy who is a book nut and would have me read to him 24-7 if possible! He would sit with me so I could read other books to him, and even try to read them himself, but wanted nothing to do with the Bob Books. This went on for months with the same response. It wasn't until I started doing a bunch of literacy reading and research for my job that I realized the probable reason why the Bob Books are gathering dust on our shelves when all of the other books are well loved. They are dull. They are boring and can hardly be qualified as stories. Does anyone really talk like that? "Mat sat. Cat sat. Mat and cat sat." No wonder he would rather I read him books like "The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales" by Heather Amery or "Frederick" by Leo Lionni or classic tales like "The Gingerbread Man" or "The Fox and the Crow." In my research, I came across two books that I highly recommend to anyone who wants their child to learn to read. These are "The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease and "Reading Magic" by Mem Fox. Trelease talks about the pleasure aspect of reading - humans want to do things that give them pleasure and shy away from things that don't, it's just human nature. When we make reading more of a chore for a child or give them boring books to read, we are taking away that aspect of pleasure that will make them want to read. A national committee called the Commission on Reading (funded by the US Dept of Education) did a 2-year study of thousand of research projects related to reading. Their report had two primary findings. The first is that the single most important activity to build success in reading is to read aloud to your children. The second is to continue reading aloud to them throughout the grades. (Yep, that means through high school, not just until they can read themselves.) So choose books and stories for your children that they will enjoy - and that you will enjoy! Build their library and read to them as often as you can - in the morning, before bed, while they are eating lunch, while they play in the tub, use books on CD in the car, etc. If you don't know where to start, "The Read Aloud Handbook" has a list of over 1000 suggested titles in various categories to read to children. My son was reading at just over 4 years old and, other than the Bob Books failure, all I ever did was read to him. And read and read.