Alternatives to Biff, Chip and Kipper?

[TerrysNo2]

Hi all

DS (4.5) loves reading. His pre-school teacher says he is reading as if he were at the end of reception year (shameless boast yes ) although I have no idea what level that actually is?

He loves the Biff, Chip and Kipper Levels 1-3 book set and reads them religiously. I was going to buy him the next stage but before I do I was wondering if anyone could recommend some alternatives that I could consider?

Thanks!

Go to the library. Generally they have early books graded into levels. The best thing you can do for a child is get them a library ticket and go regularly. I would keep off scheme books.

My daughter enjoyed Julia Donaldsons Songbirds books, at that stage.

our library were utterly useless with books for that stage - their split of levels was easy, harder and fluent reader so probably about book bands 1/2 then 5/6 and then 12.

So we hunted around and bought some collins big cat books, they have a couple of simplified Percy the Park Keeper books and others. otherwise yes we had the whole read at home set from the book people and the songbirds phonics. There are some 'real' books at that level too which I found on the internet from a company that supplies books to schools. I have listed some (the ones I had come across) on my blog thebookbears.wordpress.com/reading-levels/

Usborne do some phonics books too, 2 different sorts I think, there are some like fat cat on the mat type ones with hidden ducks in the pictures and then there are their reading scheme ones.

Don't think we had any others. Start with the library and find out if they are helpful or not with learning to read as if they are it will save you a fortune. if you get a response like we did of 'we don't support reading schemes of any sort, they should just read to enjoy' (erm yes but they have to learn to read first!) then look on the book people as they often have sets of learning to read books on offer. www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_searchResult_tbp?searchTerm=learn+to+read&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100
looks like they currently have the usborne fat cat on a mat one and also read write inc as well as some songbirds ones.
HTH