Usborne books - good for learning to read or not?

[Snowstorm]

DD2 (almost 3) got given the Usborne book collection for Christmas. Without sounding horribly ungrateful, I'm not keen on the books because although they've got nice pictures, I don't think they lend themselves to being good books to read out loud to the children ... there's nothing to 'get your teeth into' as it were and the children don't seem that bowled over by them either.

What I wanted to know, from parents with older children or anyone in the education system, is ... are these books beneficial to young readers because of the way they are written? They appear to be written so that they should be, but I'm not sure if that's actually the case or not.

Any thoughts welcome. TIA.

Which collection did you get? The phonics set?

Um ... I'm not sure ... it doesn't say phonics on them anywhere. It's the "Farmyard Collection" - "Perfect for young readers to enjoy" apparently!

Are they the "Poppy & Sam" ones where there is a (not very, but somewhat) detailed bit of story at the bottom of the page, with a very brief summary bit in big type at the top (idea being parent reads bit at bottom, child has go with bit at top)?

I think those are quite good. Children do grow out of Poppy & Sam pretty fast, but they're a good staging post. Finding the hidden duck on each page is a nice game too.

I wouldn't reject them, but not put too much weight on them either. Certainly they're not a serious learning tool, but aren't I think setting themselves up as. More practice & fun.

The idea with those (Apple Tree Farm ?) is that they could attempt the part at the top of the page and adult can flesh it out with the paragraph at the bottom . So they are good for shared reading. Also play "spot the duck" on each page ! Mine loved them , not sure they helped their reading per se as they aren't strictly phonetic but there is a rhythm and lots of repetition with a simple story construction and familiar characters. We also had the cd so they could follow along by themselves.

think thye are for the cjl;drenm to readn,. not be read to. tuck them away for a few years!

I think poppy and sam books are ok actually. but if you've got the whole collection, they are a bit repetitive.

I teach children with SEN and I would say usbourne books are as good as any early reading books.
The farmyard ones are very good as they have a short text intended for the child to read at the top of the page and then text for the parent to read at the bottom.
If they have nice picture and you are not happy with the text could you not tuse tem to encourage talk and predictions and 'elaborate' a story??
We ofen have to do this with books as for my class the story is too complicated so I make a similar one up and we encourage the children to ask and answer questions.

We got given the whole Apple Tree Farm collection (think we have 'The Book People' to thank for that!) as well as having been given several of the same books individually by the same person in the past. She's DD2's godmother and is a teacher and is obviously a big fan of them!

The DD's can't read yet (they are almost 3 and 4 1/4) but from reading all the responses (and thank you for them everyone) maybe I should get a few out now but leave the rest until they get to school and start learning to read for themselves.

I bought the whole set from the book people before I left work. Think they were £13. very good value