Pig Wig

Gunnar has all the tools he needs to be a reader. He knows the alphabet--upper and lower case--and all the sounds. He just tends to be a little nervous about it, or lazy, or just laissez faire.

Reading can be a bit overwhelming. Looking at all those letters and words on a page is a bit much for someone just starting out. But reading is also the most amazing thing and opens up the entire world.  Seeing my children read for the first time and the excitement in their voices and eyes as they sound out words is one of the joys of motherhood.

Gunnar is a little sponge and has a most excellent memory for facts, especially if they pertain to animals. He can tell you just about anything he's ever learned from a book, TV show, or computer game about guinea fowls, blue morpho butterflies, or saber tooth tigers. When he starts reading all these books he chooses in the non-fiction section of the library on his own, look out!

For now, we're quite proud of his first reading accomplishment: Pig Wig. 

This great little book is the perfect thing for a first-time reader. We followed it with its cohorts Stop Pop and Crab Cab. These books take little readers through the -ig family, -an family, -op family, -ab family, and so on. Each book has silly illustrations and combinations of 3 different "families" of simple word endings.

They were perfectly accessible and non-threatening. Gunnar was so proud of himself when he had read a whole book by himself. That excitement and thrill of accomplishment was radiating from him.

Even better, is seeing him read it to his little sister.

Note: Pig Wig, Crab Cab, Stop Pop and others in the Flip-a-Word series are written by Harriet Ziefert and illustrated by Yukiko Kido.