Big Pig on a Dig

Usborne Phonics Readers

by Phil Roxbee Cox, Stephen Cartwright (Illustrator), Russell Punter

When Big Pig receives a mysterious map, he asks Fat Cat to help him dig, but Fat Cat wants to take a nap, so Big Pig decides to go out on his own, in a text with movable flaps.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Animals, School, Teaching

16 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Rozanna Lilley]

Ah the joy of trying to help support my 4-year-old grandson's efforts to read

[Kyle Chalamet]

God I want to go home

[Kat]

Best rhymes! Big Pig obviously enjoys archaeology. But he also gets up to exciting activities: he pops on a wig, he hops on a twig! The book is awesomely illustrated by the delightful Stephen Cartwright who I adore.

[Matthew Ridley]

Big Pig, he has a map. And so he follows the map, starts digging - but I can't remember if he finds anything.

[Sheila]

Pig has found a treasure map and is going to dig for buried treasure. Enjoyable read with phonics guide in the back. Adorable illustrations.

[Nicola]

Part of a set of 12 phonics books published in 2006 by Usborne. What I like about this early set is that the books very much focus on a particular phonics sound and rhyme throughout the book rather than lots of different rhymes like the later books. They are quick and easy to read in the entire set in a sitting.

Miss 4 and I like to explore different books and authors at the library, sometimes around particular topics or themes. We try to get different ones out every week or so; it's fun for both of us to have the variety and to look at a mix of new & favourite authors.

[OxoNewbie]

Part of the Phonics Readers series to support synthetic phonics learning.

A fun story with flaps to make it interactive for the reader. Lots of practice for "ig" words (big, pig, dig. wig, twig). There are other rhyming words too (old & gold, found & ground, dream & cream). It is so well written and engaging that most little ones won't twig the book is an educational book.

An extra bonus is the yellow duck hidden on every page which provided an opportunity to reinforce positional language with my little one.

4 stars.

[Lynn Davidson]

Big Pig receives a map for a buried treasure and excitedly starts to search. He tells Fat Cat who seems to be uninterested, so Big Pig goes on a dig by himself. Surprise and funny ending. Some of the pages are fold-outs. Lovely illustrations. This is a phonics reader and inside the back cover there is phonics assistance.

[Dana Thomas]

I like all the rhyming words which help to establish recognition in reading. However, it doesn't flow as well as other books we've read in the past. It's great for early/beginning readers with phonics guide included in the back.

[LaDonna Harris]

I love that is an actual story not the typical easy reader where the story is lacking.

[Lex Redding]

Pig digs :)

[Karin]

My favorite of the Usborne readers

[Sunny F Liu]

Good book for kindergarteners to read on their own.

[Lev]

I liked that he went on a dig by himself and in the end the cat just did it for fun but he was still happy and was in a good mood and said "digging is fun!"

[KaitandMaddie]

Maddie commented on the weirdness of Big Pig popping on the wig and hopping on a twig, but otherwise it was a good read.

[Hana Allen]

Slightly older text.

Does have a range of decodable words as well as good vocabulary and illustrations

[Mom_reading_childrens_books]

I am a cat
Cats need to nap
I am a napping cat
Will forever be one of my favourite lines in any children's book.

[Angela]

very cleverly written, my daughter (5) is just learning to read and loves the easy way the phonics' flow and the lovely way the rhyming words make her smile. So much so that we have ordered the whole series. The next one on the list is Ted's red bed ;0)

[Danie Cutter]

Great book, easy words for children learning to read. Like the fact that while it uses phonics there are also "patterns" for the words eg Goose and Loose so is suited to pattern recognition methods of learning to read as well.

Have bought the whole series as daughter loves these. While the words are simple there's still enough of a story/action to keep her interested (just) while too many early reading books are three word sentences, one sentence per page and only a few pages per book.

This set of books is top of the learn to read books we've come across so far.

[Erin]

I have heard really good things about Usborne books and saw a stack of these at a garage sale and so I bought them for my toddler. They are billed as "easy readers" and contain a phonics guide for parents that I don't even pay attention to, but could be helpful if I was teaching my son about phonetics. The pictures are colorful and the words rhyme. But, I have found that every story is rather dumb and some of the stories don't even make sense. I do plan on keeping these for when he starts reading because they do use words that are easy to read. Just wish the story was better.

[Tam]

I'm not really a fan of the Usborne Phonics Readers series (I just don't like the stories)though I do think they are good for beginning readers because the words are short and rhyme.

Excerpt from the book:
"Big Pig gets a letter. Look for this hat.
Big Pig sees the hat. There is a map in the hat.
Big Pig runs to Fat Cat.
'Fat Cat! Look at the map in this hat.'
'It shows where to dig, Fat Cat.'"

[Luisa Knight]

Due to the reading level, this is a simple story, but the fun illustrations and pop-out pages help make this an engaging read.

Reading Level: 1st grade

**Like my reviews? I also have hundreds of detailed reports that I offer too. These reports give a complete break-down of everything in the book, so you'll know just how clean it is or isn't. I also have Clean Guides (downloadable PDFs) which enable you to clean up your book before reading it! Visit my website: The Book Radar.

[Shelly Koressel]

This is a good fun book for toddlers and preschool age students that are first learning phonics. Kindergarten would like this also. This story is about a pig adventure on a big dig. My little girl thinks its very funny and loves the flaps to pull up.

[Micah]

The pig is very cute. The pig has a cat named Fat Cat. The pig was tryiing to dig many holes in the ground to find treasure but he had a map but Fat Cat fooled him.

[reviewed by a 6 year old, typed by his mama]

[Luisa]

A good reading practice book for Andrew (5 years).
The story isn't too exciting but the words are about right
for him now.

[krym]

So lazy one gets the last laugh and the gullible makes an excuse for his actions at the end? I don't get it again but maybe the children will.

[Wendy Unsworth]

Lovely illustrations and fun characters. A phonic first reader book that I'm sure would be great for beginners but the story is a little stilted for out-loud reading.

[WSL Library]

x2

[Gianna]

It was funny and cool.

[Rosemary]

Nearly all the words in this reader are spelled phonetically with the exceptions of "there" and "where". Quite a good storyline, given the constraints of avoiding irregularly spelled words.