Bug in a Rug: Reading Fun for Just-beginners

Includes simple stories and poems, labeled pictures, and rebuses to help young children discover the pleasure of reading

PreSchool-Grade 2-This collection of early reading activities and stories will please parents, teachers, and children if used in the gamelike manner suggested by the authors. Starting with alphabet and letter-recognition activities, the book progresses through initial consonant sounds, using picture cues to help children identify words, simple rhyming stories, easy rebuses, and finally a series of one- to five-word stories in which the illustrations show most of the action. Many pages offer suggestions for more activities. While the stories are not as inventive as those in Allan Ahlberg's readers, the illustrations are colorful and apt, the print size is generous, and the variety of contents keeps the text interesting. This will be just the ticket for those perennial requests for "a book that can help my child learn to read."-Louise L. Sherman, Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3^-6. The authors state their belief that "the key to reading with young children is to have fun without pressure and without formal teaching." Toward that end, they offer "no-pressure activities" that youngsters can both enjoy and use to practice such pre-reading skills as letter-sound recognition, finding picture clues, and "reading" rebuses. The authors occasionally seem to forget their own advice; for example, though they note that "learning the alphabet in order is not as important as becoming familiar with each letter and the sounds it makes," their first selection is an alphabet poem presenting the letters in order. Still, the quality of the book is very good, the selections are varied and incorporate current ideas that will fit in nicely with a whole language curriculum, and Tiegreen's colorful cartoons, often the most essential component of the activity, are up to the task. Kids will have fun, and parents and early-childhood educators will welcome the highly interactive approach. Lauren Peterson