Carissa Taylor: Early Readers

Now that we're doing distance learning due to coronavirus, one of the things my kiddo has been missing during "school at home" is reading the daily home readers our school provided.

We've found a few great first readers online but I wanted more early readers that were decodable and fit the specific sounds and reading level he's doing in his phonics program.

We started playing around with silly sentences on our fridge and we had so much fun, I eventually turned a few of them into digital books. I wanted to share them with all of you, as I know a lot of us are in the same "school from home" boat. If your child is learning to read in Kindy / Prep or Year One, these ebook readers are for you!

(P.S. - that's Kindergarten and First Grade for all my U.S. folks!)

I've had a lot of fun making these, and my kiddos and I are already in the porcess of developing more! If you'd like to know when I have more available, you can sign up here:

All these are available as free .pdf files, and are formatted landscape for maximum readability on your smartphone or tablet. If you'd like a kindle or epub file, let me know!

Enjoy!

<3

Kindergarten Early Readers

Our school uses the Get Reading Right systematic synthetic phonics program, so I've designed most of these decodable readers to fit that phonics sequence. They are all .pdf files, but if you'd like a kindle or .epub file, drop me a message and I can probably make you one!

Short Vowels: A O

If your child just started kindy, they are likely in the early stages of their phonics reading program. At our school, that's Get Reading Right's Basic Code . The first unit focuses on the letter sounds made by the consonants S M C T G P and the short vowel sounds A O and the camera words I, the, was, to, are, she, the. If they are working on those words and sounds, these first decodable books are written for them to read on their own!

Sam and Pom-Pom

I have such fond memories of the first books I read by myself, with just a few letters and sight words. It felt like such an accomplishment. Hope your kiddos like this reader!

Short Vowels: A I

I have one book that follows the Jolly Phonics Programme sequence of letter sounds, as I know a lot of you are using that phonics progression, and it's what I started my oldest on in preschool. For this emergent reader, your child would need to be able to read the consonants S T P N and the short vowel sounds A I, and be learning the early tricky words the, was, she.

Ann the Ant

This book about a little ant dreaming of her name up in lights restricts itself to a very few letter sounds, so it's suitable for new readers just beginning to learn phonics.

Drop me an email at { carissawritesthings } { @ } { gmail } { .com } if you have any trouble and I'll send you a copy!

Year One (First Grade)
Early Readers

My child's school uses the Get Reading Right synthetic phonics program, so I wrote these books to fit with that sequence of teaching letter sounds. By the beginning of Year One, students will have already learned all the hard consonants and all the short vowel sounds, as well as a fair amount of camera words (that's "sight words" for all of you in the US!). In Year One, they focus on learning the different spellings of the long vowel sounds, starting with the long E sound. Get Reading Right has their phonics sequence and camera word lists for their Advanced Code (Year One) in the free resources section of their website, so check it out if you're curious where your child is at.

These books are all landscape-oriented .pdf files for your computer, tablet, or smartphone, but if you'd like a kindle or .epub file, email me and I can probably make you one!

Long E Sound Family

EE EA -Y _E (also: -E_E IE -EY)

If your child is at the beginning of year one, they'll likely be learning the first phase of the Get Reading Right Advanced Code at school. That means a focus on the long E letter sound family.
All the early readers below focus on the various spellings of the long E sound.

Deep Beneath

I wrote this first reader in the early days of our social distancing due to COVID-19. Our beaches here in Australia had just closed. When I sat down to write my little guy a couple ee / ea sentences about an imaginary seapony, I ended up with a story about working through the grief of our newly quarantined world, and about finding joy closer to home.

Grubby the Dung Beetle

This early reader was a special pet project between my son and I. The book is, in a way, my coming-to-terms with the fact that yes, my kid is obsessed with poo ... and you know what? Let's run with it, shall we?
... and maybe learn a little about North American animals and nutrient cycles on the way? ;o)

Due to the subject matter of the book, YMMV. Reader beware: poo puns and dung jokes abound within these pages. I also introduce the grapheme OO, which is technically out of sequence in the Get Reading Right program. But hey, if your kid is like mine, "poo" was one of the first words they learned to read and write ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Queen's Feast

This reader focues on the EE sound family but also is designed to incorporate many of the camera words from Units 1-5 of the Advanced Code of the Get Reading Right program.