This blog post will help you understand what pink books are like in school book banded books. It will also show how to make lots of books suitable as pink books. Click here to return to the Book Band home page here.
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Books for Book Bands
Sharing any book is perfect and when enjoying together you really don’t need to worry about reading level. However, if you child wants to practise their developing reading skills with other books (not just the book banded ones they bring home from school) then these books are suitable for children working within this level.
Pink Books
Pink books are for children who are familiar with books. They often contain one word to a page or a few words that may have sounds that they are beginning to learn. If you want to know more about phonics head to the phonics homepage here.
There are lots of different skills needed to be able to read. Pink books can also contain simple words or phrases that can be ‘read’ through using clues in the pictures.
For example a book where there is an apple illustrated on a page with the word ‘apple’ or phrase ‘an apple’. A child can use the image to help them read the word.
Often returning to favourite early board books are ideal. Your child can look at them with fresh eyes as a reader!
Make Your Own Pink Books
You can turn many of the books that you have at home into pink books. What do I mean? Well, take any book that you have and using a pen and paper add one word or a simple phrase to the page. I cut out pieces of paper and use a little blutak. Then ask your child to read that word or phrase. This doesn’t need much prep and I usually write as I go along reading with a child.
Here is an example of what I would do with a well known book such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
For this page below I may write ‘the moon’. This gives the child opportunity to read a high frequency, tricky word (click on highlighted words for more info) ‘the’ and the opportunity to sight read using the illustrations the word ‘moon’. You could just use the word ‘moon’.
Ask your child if the can find something on the page beginning with the sound /m/ and make the sound for them. You could of course do ‘the leaf’ or ‘the egg’.
It’s good to repeat patterns to build children’s confidence so I would continue in a similar style for other pages in the book. For example you could label this page with the caption ‘the sun’.
Mark Making Matters
It’s good practise to write what you are writing in front of your child so that they begin to see the link between reading and writing. You could also sound out as you are writing so that your child starts to see how words are formed. Eg. /s/ /u/ /n/. Don’t sound out words like ‘the’ that are tricky/ common exception words. Explain that these are tricky and we have to learn them by sight.
Early Reading Book Pack Recommendation
Usborne books do a great pack called Usborne My Very First Reading Library 50 Books Set Collection Pack Early Level 1 and 2. It’s one we have had since our daughter Floss was around 2/3 years old and that she still chooses to read independently now she is 6. It’s been great value for money for us.
The 50 books included are carefully graduated to help build on reading skills. A few of these books would be suitable for pink readers and then they go on to be suitable for red, yellow, blue and even into green as you can go back to some of the pink suitable books and children can read the part the adult/ more confident reader used to read. A very versatile set!
Usborne Very First Reading Book
Below is an example of one of the pages in the Usborne Very First Reading Book series (they are part of the set of 50 books above). You get a number of books at different levels – more info here.
They are designed to be read together. The larger sentences being read by the more able reader (could be adult or could be another child) and the large text being read by the beginner reader. These would be lovely books for varying age siblings to read together.
As you can see these are the perfect books for children who want that sense of ‘reading’ while still being in the early stages of their reading development.
Bob Books
Another set of books that I used with my daughter that would be ideal for pink readers are the Bob books.
Bob Books Set 1 for Beginning Readers are a set my daughter loved. They give children a real sense of confidence in reading at the start of their phonics journey. You can find inside spreads here.
They are incredible simple in illustration and words, but they are something I’ve found lots of children to really enjoy and are great for developing early blending skills in a fun way.
Free Pink Book on Oxford Owl
Click here to be taken to pink books on the Oxford Owl free eBook. Oxford Owl (part of Oxford University Press who do Oxford Reading Tree) is a free resource that you can use to read levelled books.
Understanding Book Bands
If you’d like to get a better understanding of what book bands are and how to support your child in their learning to read journey this blog post will help – Book Bands – Learning to Read at Home and School.
My rough comparison chart for various schemes is available to download below.