Bob Books went on to become a Children’s Book-of-the-Month-Club selection, and the series was adopted by homeschoolers and Montessori teachers. Articles recommending Bob Books appeared in The Washington Post, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and regional newspapers and magazines around the country. In 1993, USA Today ran a story about Bob Books. Bob Books came about as a result of teacher Bobby Lynn Maslen’s careful attention to the specific needs of children learning to read for the very first time. As a teacher, Bobby’s work with 3 to 5 year-olds involved constant invention in art, math games, physical growth activities and, of course, reading materials. When she didn’t find books that she felt were the right fit for her young students, she created Bob Books. The genius brainchild of a teacher, the BOB Books series is designed to help children easily build basic reading skills, without it feeling like a chore. While the 'AIO' function only advises that "Crop, aspect ratio, red-eyes, etc. will be corrected if necessary", it appears that it also affects the saturation of your photo as well. We would recommend that you turn this function off to avoid your cover becoming over-saturated.

Bob Books Set 2: Advanced Beginners ( ISBN 0-439-84502-5) uses three-letter words and vowel sounds in slightly longer stories. The measured changes from one book set to the next really helps to build strong foundational skills with each step. Learning to read in this way creates fluency, which is the ultimate goal, and gives children many opportunities to have successful reading experiences and build their confidence. You can go at a gradual pace with each set to make sure that your child has gotten down each targeted skill set so that they can expand upon it as they move through the stages. Our most popular app continues Bob Books’ commitment to bringing kids a satisfying, successful first reading experience, with easy first steps, wholesome values, phonics-based methodology, authentic hand-drawn illustrations, and engaging stories. My First Bob Books: Alphabet ( ISBN 978-0545019217) teaches phonemic awareness, written to help tune children's ears to the sounds letters make.These books introduce your child to the alphabet, sounds, word families, and much more with simple phrases like "Sam sat" or "The cat ran zig zag" that make use of repetition. In fact, these books are often the very first ones children can finish on their own, which instills confidence in their own abilities and encourages them to want to continue reading on their own.

The first Bob Books were individually hand-drawn for Bobby Lynn Maslen's students. When it became too cumbersome to make books for each child, she persuaded the school to print 300 copies. This eventually led to more sets, a cottage industry and self publishing. These book sets teach letter recognition and letter sounds. Learning these skills are crucial for reading and sounding out words, so it is important that this is the first step. These books are simple in design and language, and can be used with any age group. Your favorite Bob Books story characters in engaging animations encourage children in kindergarten and preschool along their path to literacy. Teachers, parents, homeschoolers, and librarians love Bob Books’ powerful use of phonics in our stories for young readers. Kids love the simple drag-and-drop gameplay. A common theme across many of the photo books we’ve reviewed is that the saturation on the image used for the front cover seems to be pushed up. However, the Bob Book’s cover was by far the worst example we saw of it. With the original photo graded with warm oranges, the final cover had an unfortunate you’ve-been-tangoed vibe that significantly detracted from the book as a whole. These book sets are for “advancing beginners” who have a grasp on sounding out words but are still putting all their new skills together. They also have sets that include sight words for kindergarteners and first graders, which are words that are memorized and identified on sight instead of by sound. The sentences and stories are longer and a bit more advanced.

We Make Learning to Read Easy!

Millions of kids have learned to read with Bob Books. Now children in preschool and kindergarten can explore the alphabet, learn new words, and practice phonics with our newly updated, award-winning app! The Bob Books became a Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club selection and the series was adopted by home-schoolers and Montessori teachers. In 1993 USA Today ran a story about the Bob Books. [1] “By that time we knew the potential was much more than we could handle ourselves.” [2] Scholastic Inc. became their publisher in 1994.

Once your child has mastered readiness skills, they can begin to practice blending sounds by sounding out simple words. These sets give opportunities for sounding out words and will reinforce letter sounds needed for blending. The simple stories are also education-minded, with topics like shapes and basic patterns.

Could a Bob Books photo book be the perfect gift you're looking for? We put it to the test to find out…

My First Bob Books: Pre-Reading Skills ( ISBN 978-0545019224) teaches reading foundation skills: shapes, patterns and sequencing. Each set is organized into stages: Reading Reading Readiness, Stage 1: Starting to Read, Stage 2: Emerging Reader and Stage 3: Developing Reader.

BOB Books were created by Bobby Lynn Maslen and John Maslen. While working in a preschool, Bobby began making the books for her preschoolers to learn how to read. John Maslen, an amazing water-color painter, drew the pictures. They were first published in 1976 and have now become VERY popular among beginning readers. There are even apps for the BOB Books! Reading becomes more complex in these sets as they introduce new rules and ideas around reading while building on fluency and reading cognition. These sets include more advanced vocabulary, longer stories, and different sound patterns, like long vowels. By the end of this stage, the goal is for your child to be fluently reading Before the first step Bob Books Set 1: Beginning Readers ( ISBN 0-439-17545-3) introduces short vowels and three-letter words.Bob Books Sight Words: First Grade ( ISBN 978-0545019248) introduces 30 additional sight words at the first grade level. Bob Books Set 4: Compound Words ( ISBN 0-439-84506-8) includes new word blends, more sight words and longer multi syllable words. Bob Books Sight Words: Kindergarten ( ISBN 978-0545019231) introduces sight words at the kindergarten level. Author Bobby Lynn Maslen was involved in cooperative preschool education for nine years and then became a teacher of 3-5 year-olds at a private school in Portland, Oregon. It was there that she created the Bob Books. Bob Books Set 3: Word Families ( ISBN 0-439-84509-2) includes consonant blends, endings and a few sight words.