SIX TRADE BOOKS

These six books are published by Random House and can be ordered

from any book store. They provide a good way to branch out from three-letter

words and tackle high priority words with different spelling patterns. The limited

number of words in each book gives you a chance to devote time to words like

what and where, which are so difficult--and so essential--for young beginners.

These books have vocabularies of 12, 24, 75, or 100 words:

Inside, Outside, Upside Down - 24 words, including down and went

Bears On Wheels - 12 words, including three and again

Ten Apples Up On Top - 75 words, 56 of them new, including what and want

By "new," I mean that they weren't in the preceding books.

Go Do Go - 75 words, 40 of them new, including there and where

Put Me in the Zoo - 100 words, 42 of them new, including could, would, and should

Are You My Mother - 100 words, 35 of them new, including were and who

First graders like these books, and being familiar with them gives a child a

chance to read them fluently--provided that the words are prepared ahead of time.

These materials provide the necessary preparation for all the words:

The Two-Sided Cards

The Transition Packets and Cards

The Color-Matching Games

The Go Fish Games

All these cards and games use the Color Code to translate the vowel sounds.

This way, your pupils can decode their sight words, even the ones with irregular

spellings, minimizing the look-and-guess reading that occurs when a child has to

reconcile sight words with sounded-out words.

The words are numbered in a way that makes it easy for you to plan your lessons

around the words you need without wasting time on the words you don't need. (With

a beginner, you may need them all.)

Having the words well prepared means that a child can really read the books

and not just recite them from memory the way pre-schoolers so often--and so

charmingly--do.

Back to Lesson-Plans