Oxford Reading Tree: Stage 3: Snapdragons
The Singing Bird - Monica Hughes


Our little one is learning to read and is coming on leaps and bounds. We have had to get a whole host of different books recently as all she wants to do is read! Recently we have bought a lot of Oxford Reading Tree books which are brilliant for children learning to read as well as those who are a little bit more advanced. They come in many different stages for differing ages and levels.

This particular book was given to us by a friend and so is a little more advanced than what our daughter is at, though we have still made use of it through reading together.

It is a stage three book and comes as part of a set of six which include;

Grandma's Glasses
Presents for Baby
Melting Snow
New Blue Shoes
A House for Hedgehog

The book is 16 pages long and has reading aids at the front and back to help your child understand what they are reading.

The book is simple and is about a king and his bird. It is not the usual type of book which we have found in the Oxford Reading Tree range and so takes on a slightly different form in the story and images. Saying that, though, the story is good and the images are colourful and lovely.

Although I said above that it is a little too advanced for our daughter, she is still able to read over half of it alone and picks up certain words form some very subtle repetitiveness in the book. In my opinion, though, children learn more in reading when a book is mixed with words they know and are easy with harder words.

Words which this book look at include;
happy, everyone, little, lovely
Mixed with easier words such as 'up' 'and' and 'lot' etc.

My little one really likes this book and is excited when she is able to pick up new words. I think this is also a lovely book and enjoy reading it with my youngster.

Fully recommended for early readers.