BEFORE THE SQUIGGLE CODE (A ROADMAP TO READING): Get Ready to Read: Simple, Fun, and Effective Activities for New or Struggling Readers Including Those with Dyslexia. (DOG ON A LOG Get Ready! Books)

DOG ON A LOG Get Ready! Books are easy for parents to use, fun for kids, and follow the science of learning to read. Information on downloading printable games, flashcards, and other materials is available in each book. With so many complementary printables, this series was created to be economical for families and teachers.

All DOG ON A LOG Books follow a systematic, Orton-Gillingham/systematic phonics-based sequence.

Trying to find a way to teach your child to read, whether you are supplementing what your child is being taught in school or as a homeschooling family, can feel overwhelming. DOG ON A LOG Get Ready! Books are written by a mom who wants to try and eliminate some of those feelings for other parents. These parent-friendly books will guide you along the path of teaching reading.

DOG ON A LOG Get Ready! Books give simple activities you can do with your child. Once you understand the skills that your child needs to learn, you may wish to add additional activities. Resources are suggested that will help you find additional free or low-cost activities you can personalize to your child.

Book 1: “Before the Squiggle Code (A Roadmap to Reading)” Starts at the very beginning of the learning to read process: it helps the learner hear the smallest sounds in words. Relevant excerpts from “Teaching a Struggling Reader: One Mom’s Experience with Dyslexia” are also included to help parents with children who are struggling to read.

Book 2: “The Squiggle Code (Letters Make Words)” Helps the learner discover that each sound has a letter or letters and when the letters are put together, they make words. This is when reading begins.

Book 3: “Kids’ Squiggles (Letters Make Words)” The seven sound-out stories from “The Squiggle Code” in a child-friendly format with pictures and less words per page. Each story adds a new group of letters.

Get Ready! Readers 1 to 7 (Can be used instead of “Kids’ Squiggles”) Each of these seven readers includes just one story from “Kids’ Squiggles” along with traceable letters and sound-out content from “The Squiggle Code.”

DOG ON A LOG Get Ready! Books help teach the important skills of phonological and phonemic awareness.

DOG ON A LOG Get Ready! Books were previously known as DOG ON A LOG Pup Books

It is with great enthusiasm that I write this letter of recommendation for DOG ON A LOG Pup Books by Ms. Pamela Brookes. As a special education professor, literacy coach, dyslexia researcher, and parent, I am incredibly impressed by these books. Ms. Brookes has developed a wonderful gift for parents in creating these how-to manuals for reading. She provides a straightforward, concise, and accurate guide for parents to provide activities in evidence-based basic reading skills. The science of reading is complicated and many parents have felt bogged down by field language and descriptions of reading skills included in other learning-to-read texts. Ms. Brookes gets to the heart of what is most critical for children to understand without losing readers in theory. Her sequence of skills and types of activities for emergent readers align with what has been proven to work in research. Additionally, she makes reading fun! This series is critical for anyone who is taking on the task of teaching a child to read.

Jennifer M. White, PhD
Department of Disability and Pschoeducational Studies
College of Education
University of Arizona
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Pamela Brookes DOG ON A LOG Pup Books are a wonderful, affordable resource for teaching phonics in a very systematic approachable manner. The information in the books is very well researched and numerous parent/child friendly activities are provided at each step along the path to teaching phonics. Since the writer has a daughter with a diagnosis of dyslexia, she has personal insight into the struggles both parent and child encounter during the process of teaching a dyslexic child to read. These struggles, along with practical solutions, are addressed. As members of a multi-disciplinarian team, speech pathologists are playing a more active role in the diagnostics and intervention of children with dyslexia and others with reading challenges. This series would be a very valuable tool for speech pathologists, other educators and parents who are teaching struggling readers.

Jill Heerboth MS, CCC-SLP
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I admire, respect and appreciate everything Brookes is doing and working for. I truly feel that she wants to provide the best possible educational materials for all children. It is evident in all her hard work that she enjoys doing it. She has a mission to provide all parents and educators with the feeling I've experienced while using her collection with my daughters. She wants parents/educators and their children/students to succeed and love the journey of reading.

Mom to 5 and 8-year-old girls
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My son was stubborn, arms crossed, face grumpy, closed off to the idea of more letters and sounds. He soon realized that fun was involved in these books. The idea of earning Tup "cash" to "buy" a small reward, such as a chicken card, helped pull him out of his stubborn moods. The chicken card is part of one of the free printable games at dogonalogbooks.com, but became an important incentive for my son. He could act out the image on the card or have someone else "perform" the image on the card. He absolutely loves chicken cards. My son also liked clapping his hands to indicate each word in a sentence and tapping a finger for each sound in a word. Tracing and saying the sound of each letter also seemed fun to him and as improved his printing. The ideas in the books and the games have reduced all of his problems listed above and he is reading cvc words as well as more difficult words. He has begun trying to spell words that he doesn't know yet and repeatedly spells new words to himself that he sees in print. He happily surprises me when we drive down the road and he reads words to me from signs or sides of work vehicles or just spells a word that he is thinking about. He is writing words too. He is confident and happy about his new abilities and keeps applying his new knowledge.

Mom to 9-year-old boy