Title: Van in a Jam
Author: Sarah Curran
Illustrator: David Hitch
Publisher: Harcourt School Publishers
(no date listed)
ISBN Number: 0-15-364069-3
Brief Summary: This Decodable Text book is about a van and all the people that ride in it. While riding in the van the people get stuck in traffic and have to find another way to get to where they want to be.
Evaluation: This book introduced words with the "j" sound, and short "a" sound. As are most decodable text books, this book was very short and there was not much to the plot at all. The pictures were bright which made it more engaging but I think the authors should have chosen a different plot since young kids can't really relate to driving vans or getting stuck in traffic.
Rating: I don't like decodable books. I think they are boring and that there are better, more fun ways to introduce letter sounds. I give this book a 2 out of 5.
See an online of the book here:
https://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/content/hsp/reading/storytown/na/grk/decodable_books_9780153745546_/DECBKGKB14.pdf
I agree with you completely! Decodable texts are meant for children to learn how to pronounce sounds with phonics, however, I find them very boring. I think that these books have the ability to defer children from reading as well.
ReplyDeleteThe title of this one made me chuckle. The plots are very sparse in these texts, but the repetition of phonics pattern is essential for building the reading abilities of beginning readers. Most children cannot go from nonreader to reading Dr. Seuss overnight.
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