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Welcome one and all to this month’s celebration of early literacy, easy readers and short chapter books! The I Can Read carnival is all about sharing finds, approaches, successes and more when it comes to books aimed at those just beginning to read for themselves, or those consolidating their reading skills.
If you’ve a review, commentary, or an experience you want to share on this topic, please leave a comment on this post including a link to your piece and I’ll add you to the carnival. The carnival will remain open until the evening of Sunday 12th December so if you haven’t got a blog post all ready to submit you’ve a few days to write one to be included. Infact we’re happy to accept posts up to a year old – so really there’s every reason to join in 
Photo: EvelynGiggles
As to my contribution to the carnival I thought it was high time I wrote about the first books M read herself, how we chose them and what we learned in the process about books for those just beginning to read for themselves.
M started learning to read (in a formal manner) almost exactly a year ago. Of course I wanted to support her in anyway I could, and that included finding some books for her to read to me at home, some earliest of early readers. I wanted books that:
3 Comments on I Can Read: A Carnival Celebrating New Readers, last added: 12/7/2010
LOVE Red House/Book People – in fact I bet they noticed a blip in their sales after we moved out of the UK!
And that book – ‘One Two Flea’ is seriously funny!
Okay to answer your Q – I go by what the child is interested in – like she is obsessed with rainforests at the moment so anything and everything I spot on them I pick up. She also loves to read the dictionary!
And graded readers – somehow they never worked for either of my kids.
I didn’t plan it either. At my kid’s school, each child has to ‘read’ a certain number of books each year. It is not mandatory but encouraged. So while in the beginning I used to send favourite books just to be told as stories, after a year I started on the level one readers – any that I could lay my hands on – and it came easy from then onwards.
As to your concern about meaningless cultural references – well, I guess if we confined our readings to Indian English books, we’d still be nowhere! Although good books are coming up all the time, I haven’t come across any for graded reading. The ones I find are either too simple, or copies of western books, or too preachy. Plus, of course, most of our collection is thrifted, so the cost factor is also something. We know more about Halloween than Holi now!
Here’s my contribution (the giveaway is over, but there’s a review and craft): http://litlad.blogspot.com/2010/11/flip-word-books-and-giveaway.html
The Red Nose Readers sound great! My boys both like levels (in books and games), so the Bob books worked really well at first. My 4-year-old also liked (and still likes) anything with funny animals, especially Elephant & Piggie. The fewer the people, the better.