Are you looking for a user-friendly curriculum to use in teaching your child to read? Bob Books are a simple and practical way to teach reading. I love them so much that I have used them to teach eight of our children to read. This Companion Beginner Guide For Teaching Bob Books is the perfect handbook to accompany you as you teach your child to read using Bob Books.

As a homeschool mom to ten, I have seen plenty of curriculum come and go! 
The Bob Books series by Bobby Lynn Maslen, however, remains my go-to for teaching kids to read.

The phonics-based method of Bob Books series uses very simple stories and funny pictures to engage young children. It is perfect for kids with short attention spans. These easy-to-read books are a great way to build young readers’ confidence and give your kids a love of reading. 

Teaching Kids to Read Using Bob Books

When I first started using Bob Books to teach our oldest son to read fifteen years ago, I felt like something was missing from the Bob Books set. I liked the simplicity of the program. I loved how it slowly progressed from simple words to more complex sounds and sentences, but I thought it would have been more helpful to have a parent guide that introduced new sight words and phonics skills as they appeared in the books. 

Looking online, I found other Bob Books resources like workbooks and Versatiles. They also have several Bob Books boxes, in addition to the original sets 1-5. What I wanted, however, was a handbook to tie it all together and lead me and my child step-by-step through Bob Books level. 

To fill this void, I did what many homeschool moms do when they can’t find a certain helpful tool… I made my own! 

I began with a simple manuscript tablet. I divided it into two parts: sight word list and phonics sounds. As we came to a new word or sound, I jotted it down in my notebook. This tablet became so handy that I have used it to teach eight of my ten kids to read. 

Just recently, I had the idea to take my original manuscript tablet notes and make it into this Companion Beginner Guide For Teaching Bob Books so that other parents can use this great resource as well!

The Bob Books Method

What I love about Bob Books is the slow progression from simple to more complex words and sentences. The first reader in Box 1 has short words that are easy for kids to sound out. The following first stories are also short with two to four words on each page.

 As the levels increase, the simple sentences become more complex. I noticed a marked jump in the number of new phonics sounds in Box 3 and again halfway through Box 4. 

Towards the end of Box 5, the sentences become longer and longer. Occasionally I had kids who struggled to adjust to reading the longer narratives. To help them transition, I would have them read a page and I would read the next page, alternating through to the end of the book. 

For Which Bob Books Is this Guide Designed? 

Because the Bob Books website has created several box sets in addition to the original five, it can be a little confusing to know which books to use and in what order. When I teach our kids to read, I use only the Box Sets 1-5 as listed below. 

Set 1, Beginning Readers

Set 2, Advancing Beginners

Set 3, Word Families

Set 4, Complex Words

Set 5, Long Vowels

*This post may contain affiliate links from which I may make a small profit at no extra cost to you.

How Will I Know If My Child Is Ready to Begin Bob Books? 

When I am teaching beginner readers, I play some games to help them with letter recognition and sounds. 

For young children to be ready to read Bob Books, they should be able to do two things.

1. Identify the names and sounds of each of the letters of the alphabet.
2. Sound out basic three-letter words. 

The games I use to help my kids be able to do this are described in the section of the guide “Getting Your Child Ready For Bob Books.”

How Do You Use the Companion Beginner Guide For Teaching Bob Books?

After a child exhibits signs of readiness as prescribed above, we start with the first stories in Set 1. Before our reading lesson, we use the Sight Words List and Phonics Sounds List in the guide to review the new sight words and phonics sounds in the next Bob Book. This review should be very brief, 5-10 minutes. 

What’s Included in the Companion Beginner Guide For Teaching Bob Books? 

This 24-page guide includes the following:

• A description of how to use the guide 
• Some ideas and games to help you get your child ready to begin reading the first Bob Books Set
• An index of sight words and phonics sounds in the order they are introduced in the books
• Sight Words List
• Phonics Sounds List
• Additional notes and FAQ

Sight Words List

The sight word list in this guide will help early readers identify irregular words that can not be sounded out. These high-frequency words are important for kids to recognize easily.

Phonics Sounds List

This systematic phonics instruction will help your beginning reader progress through the reading levels seamlessly. As they move through the book sets, this list will help introduce new sounds. 

Short vowels

Long Vowels

Endings

R Controlled Words

Words Ending in Y

Blends

Dipthongs

Digraphs

Compound Words

The playful stories with silly illustrations in Bob Books are a wonderful tool to help your kids have a positive first experience with reading. I hope this Companion Beginner Guide For Teaching Bob Books will be as helpful to you and your beginning reader as it has been for me and my children over the years. 

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Are you overwhelmed at the thought of teaching your child to read? Here are simple steps for teaching reading that actually work! This is the way I have successfully taught eight of our ten kids to read.

In my last post, TEACH A CHILD TO READ WITH TWO HABITS, I wrote about the two necessary habits that should happen every day with your child for them to become a successful reader.

1. You should read to your child frequently and daily.
2. Your child should practice reading 15 minutes daily using a phonics-based reading program..

In my last post, I elaborated on the first point explaining what types of books you should be reading to kids (nursery rhymes, picture books, chapter books) and how to use them. In this post, I will focus on the second part of learning to read: DAILY READING PRACTICE.

Video: Simple Steps for Teaching Reading That Actually Work

Practicing Reading

Young children who are beginning to read for the very first time should spend at least 15 minutes a day practicing reading. A fifteen-minute reading lesson is enough time to challenge them, but not exhaust them. Furthermore, this length of time should slowly increase as they improve in reading level.

I have chosen a plain, inexpensive approach to teaching my kids to read. We use Bob Books You can read more about how we use them along with my handy phonics guide in this post.

The Companion Beginner Guide to Teaching Reading With Bob Books

There are a plethora of flashier, more trendy reading curricula available, but instead, I picked something simple and I think this has made all the difference!

Beware:

You don’t have to find the BEST reading curriculum out there!

You can use a very simple, plain reading program. It doesn’t matter so much WHAT you choose. It matters that you start and consistently progress every day.

You can just pick something and start. In fact, that’s what I suggest!

Here are the steps I have used to teach our kids to read.

Step 1: Don’t start until they are ready!!

If you are already reading to your child frequently from an early age as part of your daily routine, they naturally acquire pleasure for a good story. The building blocks that make good readers begin with you the parent.

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” -Emily Buchwald

When they are alone at play, you might see them with an open book pretending to read. They might start asking about letters or pointing to words and asking about them. They may try drawing letters. Any of these pre-reading skills are signs that your child is ready to read.

One of the most important things is that you remember your child’s individual needs. Just as children develop differently, children learn to read at different ages and stages.

Step 2: Learn letter sounds.

The first step of phonics instruction is to start teaching your child the names and individual sounds of each letter of the alphabet. Using flash cards to teach different sounds is a great starting point too . Flash cards are one of my favorite tools for teaching letter recognition because the kids like the competition of seeing how many they can recognize.

You can use Alphabet books. Dr. Seuss’s ABC Book is a book we have used to teach letters. Also, starfall.com is a great way to expose kids phonics patterns, word families, common words, cvc words, basic sentence structure, etc. in a way that is fun. The important thing is that they are seeing capital and small letters together to recognize the difference between both.

Step 3: Put sounds together.

I like to start with a whiteboard and an exercise like this. Write an easy three-letter word and change out the first letter by erasing it and writing a new one in to see if they can read it as you change the beginning letter. Point to each letter and say the sound, then slide from left to right as you slur the sounds together to make simple words.

_AT

RAT

CAT

MAT

SAT

When they can combine letters in the word every time you replace the first letter with a new one, try making a list of about ten _AT words and having them read a list.

After trying _AT, you can experiment with other endings, especially introducing words with other vowel sounds in them: _EN, _IN, _OG, _UT

When children master the foundational skill of blending sounds together, they are ready to begin reading.

Step 4: Begin your reading curriculum.

For our Reading Curriculum, we have chosen Bob Books. Bob Books are a five box set with each box containing about 8 beginning reader books.

Our 15 minute reading practice is two-fold in this order.

First

Phonics practice (5 minutes). I made a simple phonics practice book to go along with our Bob Books. I made it over time by adding a few words daily as we came to them. It was effortless. Every day that we started a new Bob book, I looked ahead at any new sight words or new sounds in that book and wrote them down in a notebook, adding to it as we moved along to each new book. I did this to introduce the new sounds and words before we read them and to review them after we read them.

The first page is a running list of sight words and high-frequency words. The following pages are lists of sounds with 2-3 sample words below them.

Below is the original notebook I made for my kids.

I have used this successfully to teach eight of our ten kids to read. Below is the current printed notebook you can find on the blog. For more pictures, take a look at the Companion Beginner Guide to Teaching Bob Books.

Second

Reading one or two Bob books (10 minutes). Although an introduction and review of phonics will build a strong foundation, more time should be spent actually reading the books. Reading real books is the fun part that they have been waiting for!

Consistent work in this fifteen-minutes a day practice will produce successful readers! (Again, do not neglect the very important step from my last post which is reading to them frequently as part of your daily routine.)

If you have some struggling readers, my question would be this. How often are you reading to them (or using audiobooks) throughout the day as part of your routine?

Common reading challenges are often solved when you scale waaaay back on the reading instruction and increase your read-aloud time. If you are reading to them and practicing reading every day, your child will gain confidence and develop strong reading skills over time.

Step #5 Reading Progression

Beginning readers> picture books> chapter books.

When we finish our 5 Bob Books boxes, our budding reader is ready to move to more challenging texts and to read “real” books. Here are some books I have given to our kids to help them move from picture books to chapter books.

Picture books are very concrete for a child. They have fewer words and more pictures. Chapter books, because they have more words and fewer pictures, challenge a child because they require him to use his imagination.

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Wherever you are on your reading journey with your child, don’t be discouraged! Teaching kids to read takes time and lots of practice, but it will come if you let it happen naturally.

Parents get frustrated teaching younger students to read when they feel pressured into thinking that reading should happen by a certain age or at a certain pace.

Keep reading aloud to them and having them practice reading every day.

The point of reading practice is PROGRESSION. Ignore what everyone else says or makes you feel. Ask yourself, “Is my child moving forward?” Do not make the mistake of putting expectations on a child that will only discourage him!

Have more questions about teaching a child to read? Id’ love to hear them!

RESOURCES AND ENCOURAGEMENT

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Also find inspiration for your homeschool by checking out my gallery of MOM INTERVIEWS!

Though it really shouldn’t be, one of the most intimidating endeavors to a new homeschooler is teaching children to read. You have already taught your child to do a host of other important skills as a parent: sleeping through the night, potty-training, talking. Reading is the next step. You can teach your child to read with two important habits.

Parents get frustrated teaching kids to read when they feel pressured into thinking that reading should happen by an early age or at a certain pace.

Here are some practical ways I have taught our kids to read. Though it is not comprehensive, the information in this post comes from my experience teaching in public schools and at home teaching our kids how to read.

These are simple principles for anybody to use. This is not a comprehensive description, but I hope it is enough to help someone get started.

Teaching a child to read is a natural process. It does not have to be difficult. Yes, it can be slow work. It takes effort.

The progression happens over a period of time, if you can be patient for it, but it is not difficult. And if you can relax with your child, it might just be enjoyable!

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Two Daily Reading Practices

You should practice two things every day for your child to become a proficient reader. One requires a lot of time. The other should be 15 minutes a day depending on the age of the child.

1. The most critical step is to read to your child often. The best way to do this is to read in short chunks of time scattered throughout the day as part of your daily routine. You don’t need to read for a long time in each setting, but it should be frequent and pleasurable.
2. Early readers should practice reading 15 minutes a day using a phonics-based reading program. As they increase in level, the time also increases, but at the very beginning, they should daily practice 15 minutes of phonics instruction/reading skills.

#1 Read to Your Child

One of the most important things when you begin teaching a child to read is to read to him often. This should not take a lot of time in one sitting since that would overwhelm a young child. Read to him frequently in short chunks throughout the day.

Imagine that as your child is learning to sound out simple words, he is drawing from the bank. He comes to new words and as he is putting the different sounds together, he is thinking through his mental register of common words to see which word is the closest match. If he has heard words used many times before, he will be familiar with how to pronounce words and how they fit in the context of a sentence.

The amount of exposure a child has had to the written word directly reflects the number of words in his word bank. The more familiar words he has in his word roll, the quicker he will be to find a match and to continue to progress in reading.

What should be read to a child?

With the exception of nursery rhymes for the toddler and preschool years, all children can benefit from each of these types of books being read aloud to them. Even older children can appreciate quality picture books like those I have suggested.

Nursery rhymes. (young children)

Why do children love nursery rhymes and simple songs? Because when you can’t read something, your mind is looking for some form of stimulation. Repeating the same sounds and rhythms IS your reading. They are building a repertoire.

What happens when a child hears nursery rhymes every day? They will repeat them throughout the day. Actually, when you teach a child nursery rhymes, you will hear, “Again! Do another one!”

Children love to hear the same phrases over and over so that they can remember them and do them on their own. Many nursery rhymes have been put to song. If you can sing some of them and add motions, your preschooler will relish this time with you. You will be folding laundry and hearing them in the next room saying, “this little piggy went wee wee wee aaaaaall the way home!” with delight.

Picture books.

Rather than a large collection of random books, I suggest a small library of 40-50 carefully chosen books. Set aside the cartoon character, “candy” books that do little to engage the imagination. Those are fine for fun, but a small collection of beautiful, timeless classics read to them by a loving parent, will draw them in AND fascinate them.

When a child hears his favorite books read over and over again, they will become his friends. When the three year old lays down for nap or quiet time, he might be found looking at the pictures and “reading books” to himself. You might overhear a fine rendition of “The Three Little Pigs”. He is not actually reading, of course, but he has heard the story often enough that now he can retell it in his own words as the pictures cue him and he feels like he is reading. These pre-reading skills will fuel his desire to read more books on his own.

A Few Favorite Picture Books From Our Collection

Chapter books.

Even if a child can read on his own, he will benefit from having someone read to him. You are adding to his bank. The more you read to him, the more he understands words.

Additionally, reading aloud to a child creates a culture of shared experiences. When you read aloud to a child every day, you experience things unique to just you and your child. When a child begins reading chapter books, he moves from learning to read to reading to learn. The world is opening up to him!

A Few Favorite Chapter Books from Our Collection

Audiobooks.

I highly recommend using audiobooks for bedtime. This is a great way to give them something to look forward to at bedtime. Most importantly, they are less likely to be distracted which often happens when they listen to audiobooks during the day.

Memory Work

Memorize something every day. Memorizing is a form of reading. It builds literacy skills. It helps cement words and their meanings (and their spelling!) into their minds.

Memorizing for school-age kids is what nursery rhymes are to preschoolers. It is building a repertoire of high-frequency words.

Here are some memory suggestions: a poem, Scripture, part of a historical document or speech.I wrote this post to give you more Memory Work ideas. Simple Ideas for Memory Work in Morning Time

We don’t sit and read lines over and over or “try” to memorize. We only read the poem or the Scripture one time a day (usually in the morning) for a month or two. After a period of time, they usually have it memorized. Remember saying the pledge of allegiance in school? You never tried to memorize it. You just said it once every day.

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Sample of our Daily Reading

Here is an example of reading in small chunks throughout the day.

Breakfast– nursery rhymes (preschool children only) ,memory work , Bible story

After lunch-( for napping children) 2-3 picture books

(for non nappers) 20 minutes quiet personal reading, Mom reads aloud a chapter book and any other school-related reading

Dinner– Family reads a chapter of Scripture round-robin style

Bedtime Routine– Both of our extended families have a rich history of singing old hymns. Because we want to transfer this to our kids, we sing a hymn before bed. Another reading opportunity!

Bedtime– audiobooks in bed

If I were to guess, this is an average of two hours a day that some form of reading or reading aloud is happening. And this does not include the times that they pick up a book just for fun!

A literate environment will produce strong readers!

#2-Fifteen Minutes Reading Practice

The second important step to build your child’s literacy is daily reading practice. Young readers should practice reading for fifteen minutes daily. Obviously, as a child progresses in their literacy skills, the amount of time spent practicing reading or reading on their own naturally increases.

Daily reading practice should include some direct instruction in phonics concepts (letter sounds, putting letters together, long and short vowel sounds, word blends, cvc words, phonics rules, etc.) with a greater time spent on the actual reading.

If you have read to your children frequently, they will already have a love for stories and knowledge. At some point they will want the power to do it for themselves. They want the tool that gives everyone around them access to knowledge!

Remember when your child was a baby and they reached a point in their development when they insisted on feeding themselves? That’s what happens when a child is ready to read.

There are many excellent phonics programs available today, but I love using this Companion Guide to Teaching Bob Books. For the full post on how I teach 15 minutes of daily reading practice with beginning readers, see Simple Steps for Teaching Reading That Work!

Troubleshooting

Are you frustrated with your child’s struggle with reading? Here are some questions to ask yourself.

• Does your child want to read? If not, don’t push!!! Scale waaaaay back on reading practice and vamp up your read-aloud time with them. It will come.
• Do you have expectations that your child should be reading by a certain age or grade? The point of reading practice is PROGRESSION. Ignore what everyone else says or makes you feel. Kids learn at different paces. Ask yourself, “Is my child progressing?” If they are progressing, they will be fine! Do not make the mistake of putting expectations on a child that will only discourage them! Let them learn at their own pace.

We live in a literate society. To do almost everything, you have to be able to read the English language. The drive to want to read will become innate because of our literate environment. Reading to them adds even more fuel to this fire. You want them to LOVE reading because that will furnish them for life.

Don’t look at their present reading level as the barometer for their future reading success. Gauge their reading success by how much they LOVE hearing a good story or book read to them. That will be the force driving their reading mastery!

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The rewards for teaching a child to read are huge. When you teach a child to read, you have given him perhaps the most useful tool that he will use for the rest of his life! You have opened up a world of knowledge and possibilities for him. I encourage you to relish teaching your child to read.

For more information on how I teach 15 minutes of daily reading practice with beginning readers, see SIMPLE STEPS FOR TEACHING READING THAT ACTUALLY WORK!

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