Decodable Book BOB Books

The decodable book I chose to describe is a set of BOB Books by Bobby Lynn Maslen.  I found these books in the public library.  They are a set of twelve small  books. The front page of the first book noted that this set was for advanced beginner readers.  The first title in the set is “Fun in The Sun”. Other titles are “Up, Pup” “Pig and Pog” “Bow-Wow”, “The Big Hat” “Sox the Fox” “OK, Kids” “Rub-a-Dub” “Go Bus” “The Red Hen” and “0-10”.  There is one sentence on each page, and there are four words per sentence.  Each book focuses on a different phonics sound and they all use very simple words.  The sentence structure is always the same: noun,  verb (which is often a site word) article, adjective and noun.  A typical sentence is “Pop had a top hat.”  There are very simple illustrations, basically line drawings.  All the books do have a simple story.  The back cover of each book has suggestions for parents and adults on how to discuss the story with a child.  The last page of each book indicates the number of words in the story, the vowel sounds, and the sight words.  The sight words are usually a, the, was, and had.  Each book in the series has about twelve pages per book, with one picture on each page representing the simple sentence.  The books do not get any more difficult in reading ability as you go from book one to book twelve;  they just use different phonic sounds.  But the next series of Bob Books advances to a higher level. 

The emphasis is on learning short vowel sound words that rhyme.  As the child went through this series, he or she would be able to sound out and decode and read these simple stories.  By the time the child got to the last book in the series, he or she could probably decode the story without much help because they would have been exposed to the phonics and the sight words in the previous books.  A child could read these little books independently.

The book are small for a child to easily hold.  These books do not tell a compelling story or have an important theme or message, as one would see in an authentic text.  These are great books to teach children how to decode and use phonics to read.  They are very useful books, but it is important for the teacher to augment with authentic literature. BOB Books are an important stepping stone to reading and I give them four out of four stars for that.

Title: BOB Books

Author: Bobby Lynn Maslen

Publisher: Scholastic

Publication Dae : 1999
ISBN: 0-439-14499-X