Now I'm Reading!: Animal Antics - Volume 2

Only 1 small reader sent, not the kit! Very disappointed. All 3 kits I ordered showed up with only a book from kit

This series helped my daughter tremendously as she struggled with phonics and beginning reading. It is the only product I found that really made a difference.

It is so hard these days to find interesting books that focus on phonics AND child confidence that don't have an overwhelming number of undecodable words. This book is a treasure if you are looking for a program focusing on beginning phonics (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) and Consonant Blends and Sight Words in a format that your child will enjoy while building up confidence. Each soft cover book is about 5" by 5" and has about 10 easy reading pages that slowly builds up the sentences with each page, (e.g. A cat. A tan cat. A tan fat cat.) yet is still able to hold a story (e.g cat loses a race but his friends still clap for him). The books are Fat Cat, Hot Dog, Pig Jig, Rub-A-Dub Cub, Wet Legs, Crab Trap, Frog Cops, Fish Gift, Stuck Duck, and Elk Yelps. My daughter is so happy to be able to say she can read a book without help! It truly builds up their confidence and is exactly what reluctant beginning readers need. The set comes in a nice little hardcover case, easy for readers to carry around, and has individual see-through pockets to keep each book safe in or insert the back flaps to make one big book, and has a magnetic closure tab, to keep it all together and give kids that special-book/diary type of feel so they'll want to take it to bed. It also comes with a list of questions for kids, parents advice book and stickers. The illustrations are simple, funny and enjoyable. I am so happy I found this indispensable teaching tool! Highly recommended!

We are a homeschooling family, looking for wholesome materials. I bought this set for my daughter and she absolutely loves them! They are so funny and intriguing that she wants to read them again and again. The stickers are motivating and we have now graduated on to the Level 2 readers. These are easy to add into my curriculum and reinforce the appropriate vowel sounds with her. I can't recommend them any higher!

"Animal Antics" is one of the two Level 1 book sets in the Now I'm Reading! series. It contains ten 10-page books which introduce new readers to short-vowel sounds. They feature colorful, funny stories which take the child through an entire story line while using basic phonics skills. Each story begins with two words, then each page continues to build on those two words thereby giving the child confidence in going on to the next page. The 10 books in this set are: Fat Cat, Hot Dog, Pig Jigs, Rub-a-Dub Cub, Wet Legs, Crab Trap, Frog Cops, Fish Gift, Stuck Duck, and Elk Yelps. Books 1 to 5 (as explained in the Parent Guide which comes with the set) are comprised of mostly three-letter short-vowel words and some four-letter words. They introduce some consonant blends, sight words, and the word ending -s. Books 6 to 10 focus on short-vowel words comprised mostly of four-letter words. They use consonant blends and the beginning or at the end of words, and use additional sight words. Each book comes with 5 stickers (total of 50) to be used as incentives. An example from the book "Hot Dog" - each sentence is a page: A dog. A hot dog. A hot, hot dog. A hot dog got on a log. A hot dog got on a log in the fog. A hot dog got lost on a log. A hot dog got lost on a log in the fog. Sob! Sob! Stop the log! A hot dog flops off the log. My son loves these books and this series is responsible for him learning to read. The skills and confidence he has gained through using these books has taken him on to more advanced levels with great enthusiasm. I highly recommend them!

I bought this set of 10 books for my 4 yr old who is already starting to read. I had already bought 2 sets of the Bob Books. The Bob Books are good, but this set is really good. It even has colored pictures, which the Bob Books do not. This set also comes with stickers that match each story, so that when your child successfully reads a book, he/she can place a sticker on the inside cover showing that he/she has completed it! It would be beneficial for your child to have a good amount of sight words under his/her belt before attempting these books. My son knows around 40 sight words (a, the, and, he, is, it, on, can, yes, no, etc.) It made it a lot easier, because then he just needed to work on sounding out the other words in the book such as: log, fog, dog, hat, pig, wig, etc. I totally recommend this series of books for beginning readers.