Howly Dog, Growly Dog, Doggies Please Get OUT! (Too Many Dogs - Lori Askins)

Member Name: DavyMichelle

Product:	Too Many Dogs - Lori Askins
Date:	26/05/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well Written, Great Illustrations, Cheap

Disadvantages: None

Too Many Dogs is another book from the series Step Into Reading at the first level. It costs £2.99 from Amazon if you want to buy a copy, and it's probably suited to a child of about four or five years old. Our grandson is four and he's found this challenging but manageable.

I like that this book starts with basic vocabulary then grows on that, which is a straightforward and logical way for little kids to learn how to read variables of common words. The first few pages say "big dog, bigger dog, biggest dog". This kind of text is ideal for making sure kids don't solely guess the words from the pictures, but try to look at the word as a whole as well. It also helps them to learn a little bit about basic suffixes.

As the book progresses, the words get a bit trickier, but they keep the number of words per page down to a minimum which I approve of. Most of the words are NOT phonetics, so this is more the kind of book that a child with a good memory will do well at. Phonics is an important part of learning to read these days, but remember that kids will have to commit quite a large volume of key words to memory at some point so they might as well start trying young.

I think this is a great book for sharing with a young child, that they can go onto read themselves as they start to recognise and remember more and more of the words. The text is a good size and the illustrations are good quality and really comical too. We particularly like all the amusing facial expressions on the dog, and the double page illustration of all the dogs munching away on someone's lunch (wrecking it in the process of course).

I think most young children would enjoy this, the grandson certainly does.

Summary: Highly Recommended