Changes

|title=Bob Books First

|author=Bobby Lynn Maslen and John Maslen

|publisher=Scholastic Paperbacks

|date=May 2006

|website=http://bobbooks.com/books/

|video=zgwlB_Y1SCk

|summary=The absolute best product on the market to teach your child to read at home, or to help a child having difficulty in school. These are books that teach children to read, and teach children to love reading.

}}

As a home educator, this simple set of books is one of the most essential educational items I own. I've ended up buying 4 sets, as one was given away to a family in desperate straights, one was water damaged, and most recently a few books out of the last set have disappeared. It is the one thing I just can not manage without, so even though I'm sure they'll turn up eventually, I simply can not wait and ordered a fourth set. I have literally invested hundreds of pounds in phonics programmes, and I have some wonderful resources, but as simple as these books are, they are the one set I can not manage without. They break everything down into such simple terms that even the youngest child can easily get a grasp of how to use phonics to decode new words. It is not even necessary for the child to know their alphabet first, although I would recommend waiting until the child not only knows their alphabet, but also can recognise basic shapes and patterns, knows text is read from left to right, and can recognise a couple of words in print, such as their own name. It is possible to teach a very young child, even as young as two or three to read a few of these books, but it really is best to achieve some degree of reading readiness first.