Tag: limitedvocab

A HarperCollins My First I Can Read! easy reader, Just a Baby Bird by Mercer Mayer is another adventure of the Little Critter and his family.  In this story for children ages 4-8 who are learning to read with help, Little Critter and his sister discover a baby bird whose momma is nowhere to be found.  The family takes care of the bird until it is time for it to fly away, but the bird returns in the spring with a family of its own. Published in 2016, this story is told in an accessible manner for emergent readers with short words and lines, a 24-point typeface, and plenty of white space.  The brightly-colored illustrations help to communicate the story and will be familiar to fans of the Little Critter series, while the modern touches of Mom looking up what to feed the baby bird online and Dad using his smartphone to take a picture of it add modern elements that children will recognize.  Children will enjoy reading this story of compassion and patience on their own or experiencing it as a read aloud.

A HarperCollins I Can Read! Level 1 easy reader, The Berenstain Bears’ Sleepover by Mike and Jan Berenstain is another tale of the beloved Berenstain Bear family’s adventures.  In this story for children ages 4-8 who are just beginning to read, Sister and Brother Bear have a sleepover with some friends, but not much sleep actually occurs, resulting in a sleepy Papa and Mama Bear the next morning.  Published in 2009, this story is told in an accessible manner for beginning readers with short words and lines, a 22-point typeface, and plenty of white space. The brightly-colored illustrations help to communicate the story and will be familiar to fans of the Berenstain Bears series.  One thing of note, while the word and line length in this book are not excessive for this beginning reading stage, the sentence length is at times a tad long, with sentences frequently composed of 10 words or more, and there are several lines on each page.  The sentences are simple and declarative, so the complexity should not be prohibitive, but they are longer and more plentiful than sentences found in other I Can Read Level 1 easy readers, a fact for caretakers to be aware of if recommending this book to be read independently by readers truly just beginning to read.  Being too excited to sleep is surely an experience that both children and adults can relate to, making this story a fun read-aloud or an enjoyable book for a child to read on her own.