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The Pals Play Basketball
Emma, Dot, and Kim are pals. They like to play basketball and have a game today. Will they win? Find out in this A-level decodable chapter book for early readers. This book uses a combination of short-vowel words and sight words in repetition to build recognition. Original illustrations help guide readers through the text. Author Cecilia Minden, PhD, a literacy consultant and former director of the Language and Literacy program at Harvard Graduate School of Education developed a specific format for this series. Books include author biography, phonetics, and teaching guides.
24 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 29, 2024
The pals in question are Emma, Dot, and Kim. These gal-pals like to play basketball. Today they're going to play a game. Will they win?
For starters, what's the mystery?
How the play may matter, whether these three girls win or lose. But they might care quite a bit about whether they actually win.
No spoilers from me, no no! But I believe that I may safely disclose that one team receives applause by the end of this book.... Hmmm....
Second, what's the puzzle?
For pre-readers, every page is a puzzle. A big illustration, dominating the page, shows something happening to one potential pet or another, etc.
Toward the bottom of the page is a short sentence. Well, how do you read that? And what does it have to do with what's happening in the illustration?
Reading might be the most exciting game in all the world. (Even in her 70s, this Goodreader still feels that way.)
Third, what IS the phonics lesson about?
For us, that answer can be easy, Goodreaders. Readers learn to decode C and K. Also kids have some fine short-but-meaningful vowels to decode
That's academic fancy-talk about phonics. The vowels of interest are these:
- Short A, like BALL
- Short I, like WIN
- Short O, like BLOCKS
- Short U, like JUMPS
FIVE STARS for an excellent learning opportunity. Once upon a time, Goodreaders, all of us learned how to recognize the J sound in the language we spoke. Then we came to recognize what squiggly-or-straight letters had to do with it. And then all this clicked. We could READ better than before.
For starters, what's the mystery?
How the play may matter, whether these three girls win or lose. But they might care quite a bit about whether they actually win.
No spoilers from me, no no! But I believe that I may safely disclose that one team receives applause by the end of this book.... Hmmm....
Second, what's the puzzle?
For pre-readers, every page is a puzzle. A big illustration, dominating the page, shows something happening to one potential pet or another, etc.
Toward the bottom of the page is a short sentence. Well, how do you read that? And what does it have to do with what's happening in the illustration?
Reading might be the most exciting game in all the world. (Even in her 70s, this Goodreader still feels that way.)
Third, what IS the phonics lesson about?
For us, that answer can be easy, Goodreaders. Readers learn to decode C and K. Also kids have some fine short-but-meaningful vowels to decode
That's academic fancy-talk about phonics. The vowels of interest are these:
- Short A, like BALL
- Short I, like WIN
- Short O, like BLOCKS
- Short U, like JUMPS
FIVE STARS for an excellent learning opportunity. Once upon a time, Goodreaders, all of us learned how to recognize the J sound in the language we spoke. Then we came to recognize what squiggly-or-straight letters had to do with it. And then all this clicked. We could READ better than before.
Displaying 1 of 1 review