My First Bob Books: Pre-Reading Skills Kindle Edition

My 3-year-2-month-old absolutely loves these pre-reading books. He doesn't know the alphabet reliably yet. I bought these on a whim, not sure if "prereading skills" would be something noticeably different from the other books we read, but WOW yes they are. You find some of the same pattern games in other books, but always with other distracting details or illustrations. Here the words and line drawings are simple, the pattern games are clearly and implicitly laid out, and they ratchet up gently in difficulty step by step. And my son LOVES it. He obviously loves both the challenge and the satisfaction of being able to meet a reasonable challenge gauged just right for him. He insisted on reading all 12 books at once the first time we opened the box, and carried the boxes around all evening begging for more and laying them next to his bed when he went to sleep. When he woke up the next morning we had to read them all over again. He's always enjoyed books but I would never have expected this reaction out of him!! Many thanks to the authors, if they ever see this review -- you've made my son so happy. We especially (each in our own way) love that they are not didactic -- you figure out the pattern but nobody is giving instructions or telling you what to do. I highly recommend this to other parents of littles.

BOB Books were recommended to my by a few teachers that I value their opinion, so I bought this set (My First Bob Books Pre-Reading Skills) to help my little boy learn to read. We struggled with this set. It has quite a few words in the book that he (in Kindergarten) was not able to read or figure out on his own. We used them briefly, but were turned off of BOB books. I was really disappointed. Now my son is in 2nd grade and struggling with fluency. We tried the BOB books set again. It was easier for him to read this time around and he was excited that he could mostly read them without my help. So, I looked into other sets of BOB Books and was VERY surprised to see that the other sets do not have such difficult words in them. If you have a young reader, I would recommend BOB Books "Set 1: Beginning Readers" and go from there based on your child's ability to read. If you go to BOBbooks.com, you can view the book sets by stage (level) with picture samples of the books in each set. This can help you determine which set is best for your child. We have bought more sets and they are really helping my son with his fluency, which is helping build his confidence as a reader. I would recommend BOB Books, maybe just not starting with this set.

I purchased this set for my then 18-month old daughter for Christmas. While babysitting, I have seen first-hand how wonderfully the Bob Books Reading series works. The kids really take to them and the books do help them learn how to read. So I was very excited to try this pre-reading series with my own child. Unfortunately, it's just not that great. In fact, it's terrible.First, it's very bare-bones. Granted, at 4 or 5 the kids are ok with no color on the pages, but at 1-2? There needs to be some color. These books (as seen in the Amazon preview) only contain 3 colors at most (black, white, and red for the first 3 books, and the third color changes in the other sets of 3).Second, they're poorly written. Even in the Amazon preview, you can see that on page 5 it says "Until morning, Sally liked one thing..." It SHOULD be "Until ONE morning, Sally liked one thing..." It's annoying to have to insert words and also shows the lack of attention to detail in the writing. And the story lines are just absolutely terrible. It's all about the skill they're trying to teach so it's very very basic and very very boring. Just to give you an idea, the last book, which is arguably the most advanced, is about going to the beach. It's one activity after another - most of which take place in the house: packing snacks and towels, putting on sunscreen and swimsuits, getting into the car, and finally, at the beach, jumping in the water. The last line is "Thank goodness they had nothing else to do but play all day in the sparkling surf." "Thank goodness?" By the end, you're like "Hell yeah, thank goodness they have nothing left to do. Thank goodness this terrible book is over."I get it, it's about shape identification and shape recognition, patterns and sequencing, etc. But honestly, my daughter is exposed to so many other things that teach her these skills - like her shape sorter, her blocks, her stacking cups, drawing with her, play-doh alphabet stampers, foam alphabet and shapes for the bathtub, her many other books that we read to her, etc. All of which are colorful, engaging, and also teach a myriad of other skills at the same time.What my daughter (now 2) DOES like about these books is their size and the case they come in. She regularly opens up the box and pulls out the books. If I try to sit down and read them to her, she has absolutely no interest. The stories are boring, lack color, and are just not designed to hold the attention of a young child. It's also miserable reading for an adult.I'm planning on donating these books. Not worth saving for a second child. And I'll skip the rest of the pre-reading series. This has been such a poor experience that I'm rethinking whether it's worth getting the reading series, which is equally boring and in black and white - but it does work.

We are homeschooling our son who has severe attention issues. Learning to read other curriculum books have not worked, this series of books has helped him EXPONENTIALLY practice and learn to read.

These books are smaller and have many more words that are also harder in comparison to the regular Bob's books. But these are designed to be read to the child, so that's mostly fine. I took off one star, because one of the character's, Seth, looks practically identical to the character Mac in the regular Bob's books. It's explained in the series that Mac and Seth are brothers, but my son still points to Seth and calls him Mac. I wish they did something to make the two brothers look a little different.

These are excellent books to teach children to read! I used them with my children and have now purchased them for my grandchildren.

My preschooler enjoys handling these books because they are perfectly sized for little hands. The titles are catchy and the stories are short which is great for busy movers. Learn about shapes and other common items in a fun way.

It has helped my children learn to read giving them the confidence they need!

Brilliant just what we wanted.

We own the entire Bob books series, this one was a recent addition. Based on the placement in the "pre-reading' category, I expected it would be very easy but these books are more suited to be read once a child has gone through some of the other easier books ie: Stage 1 and Stage 2 books first. There are some larger words like "Matryoshka" that appear but overall the words are a more advanced the stage 1, 2 and 3 books. This was great practice for my 1st grader who is in French immersion and needs to keep practicing her English reading.

Book quality isn't very good consider the price, pages aren't fully colored, and when it is colored it's not obvious why.

On ne se troupe pas. Vraiment un ouvrage pour lecteur débutant. J'apprend l'anglais à 40 ans en même temps que ma fille de 5 ans.

Wonderfully helpful material. My grandson was reading after a couple of weeks.