Whats a good alternative to online books for Reception level reading?

[Millionprammiles]

Dd's school uses the Bugs Club series but dd doesn't like reading online as the text is really small (and doesn't seem expandable on the ipad). I'm not a fan of online either, gives me eye strain.

Is there a Reception level series available in print copy? We have the Biff and Chip ones but looking for an alternative to relieve the boredom (for me). Have a few Ladybird books but the vocab is a bit too tricky in them yet as she hasn't yet learnt many phonemes.

Dd's teacher only changes her reading book once a week and the school and local libraries don't have books suitable for Reception level. Am diligently trying to do 10 mins reading with dd a day but she's getting a bit bored...

Our school does Rigby Star - I quite like them actually. I was able to use the local library to supplement as ours has a good selection of reading scheme books of all levels.

Have you tried Reading Chest? They do a a subscription by post thing for a few of the reading schemes, I've not tried them but I've seen them recommended on here a few times.

The Songbirds series by Julia Donaldson is really good. I bought this set:

www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=218821

Ah, yes, we bought the Songbirds collection as well.

Thanks all - Have just ordered some Songbirds books on sale on Book People (and Peppa Pig books to appease dd...). Dd loves Biff etc but they're doing my head in...

The Bug Club books are all available as paper copies as well as on line

You CAN read harder books with children, following my advice:

When reading harder books with a child, get him to point to words as he goes along. If he knows the word, or can sound it out, he can say it. If he doesn't know the word, he can hover his finger over it, and YOU say the word for him. Don't stop to analyse or discuss the word at this stage, but try and keep the 'flow' of reading going. Review difficulties at the end, if you wish to. This way, he has the satisfaction of reading more difficult books, without the fear of getting 'stuck' on words.

If you wish you can extend this, with the child compiling their own 'dictionary' in a notebook, adding newly learnt words, or meanings of words they did not know.

Osborne Very first reading are nice - mix of you read a page, D.C. reads a page - makes the story more interesting! My reception DC is flying through them!

Usborne even!!

I used to go to that very old fashioned place called a library and choose suitable books with my children. They had a good selection for early readers and we did paired reading all the time to access books that had decent stories and were more interesting. Sometime non fiction books too. There is something satisfying about turning a page. Poetry books for children are highly recommended too. I bought these.

Need bojorojo try the library or buy some books.
Biff and Chip don't 'do your head in' that much. Generations of us have coped without e-books.
I'm a massive fan of technology for kids but if you can afford the screens you can afford the books. Buy them. Or make the effort to borrow them from the FREE local library.

TheSnork is right - libraries are brilliant for exactly this sort of thing. Lots of books, pick and choose, if you don't like it then it's cost you nothing, if you love it hurrah!

Am all for libraries but my post did say our local library doesn't have books suitable for dd to read. (Lots of great books for us to read to her though and we've used it generally for years).
Don't want to kill dds confidance by trying to make her read 4 syllable words yet. It ends up being story time (which is still great but not dd reading time).

Bono/Snork - Didn't say we couldn't afford the paper books or preferred e books, was just looking for recs of paper books (gratefully received from other posters).

Can you reserve suitable books from across your area to be collected from your local libray?
If not, have a look at Book People for cheap collections of early reader books.

I subscribed to reading chest when DD was reading those sort of books. First rate service, our small rural local library is crap and I had to order in books/wait ages for them.

Really recommend it.

I was going to say songbirds but see you're already on it! We had some Read Write Inc from the book people too, also quite nice, though don't know if they have them in at the moment.

Are you sure your library don't have an "easy readers" shelf tucked away somewhere? It's not all that obvious in our library, hides in the corner of the non fiction. Separate from the normal preschooler type picture books and the main children's section. I'd go through the songbirds first though anyway as library easy readers are often not phonics-oriented.

Does her school not have a library? My DD brought home the Diary of Samuel Pepys at age 4 - the Ladybird version. No she didn't read it but we chatted about what was in it and why it was an amazing time to live in London. I would be really surprised if the library has nothing. Having said that, reading to her is vital and struggling through loads of books as a 4/5 year old is probably counter-productive anyway. Great stories and characters in children's literature are far more fun.

I think the OP is looking for books her child can read independently and I'm sure she's already sharing lots of other books.

Reading Chest is fab

OP's post was clear - they change the books once a week at school (if it's anything like ours Reception has its own library and kids bring home 1-2 reading books and a book to have read to them, once a week), and the local library doesn't have anything suitable.

OP, DS1 has hard copies of the Bug Club from school, really glad to hear about Songbirds. Good thread!

Reading chest came about here because school did not change books even once a week.

Small rural school, not enough staff to listen to them read. Small rural library with a poor selection of books.

I bought a few sets before I discovered reading chest. DD loved it so much we would get three in the post and they would be read the same day, back in the post the next morning and new books two days later.

Unless you have experienced a 50 - 100 child primary school and a tiny library you wouldn't really expect it to happen.

Reading chest is great. I loved that we could choose not to have Oxford Reading Tree books as I loathed them.

The small rural school where I live changes books daily ...we don't have a library just a travelling van that parks up for an hour on Wednesday lunchtime when most people are at work.

We have got a 4 weekly mobile library van with a very poor selection of books for children. You can reserve without charge for delivery on the van but it could take weeks to get a book you ordered.

A lot of people in the village use it so as not to lose it but you wouldn't be able to rely on it to keep an interested child busy.

Meg and mog, not now Bernard, where the wild things are......just hit a local book shop and go by age guides!