Beginning Readers: Little Blossom Stories

Learning to read can be difficult, and as a parent it can be hard to know where to start. Today we’re going to highlight a new series that is a great tool for children learning to read and parents who are supporting them: Little Blossom Stories by Cecilia Minden.

The stories are fun and easy to understand with lots of repetition. Repetition is important because it allows children to practice words, increases their confidence and helps them build the connections in their brain necessary for reading success. The illustrations are colourful, bright and well done, which will help the reader in understanding what the story is about.

There are some tools at the back of the book to further help children strengthen their literacy skills. There are three word lists for children to practice with:

• Sight words: commonly used words that children are encouraged to memorize so they can quickly recognize them
• Short vowel words: words where the vowel does not have a long sound, such as the word dog
• Blends and digraphs: Blends are two or more consonants that blend together but each sound can still be heard (like the “sn” in snow). Digraphs are words with two letters that make just one sound (like the “sh” in shoe).

We like these lists for a few reasons:

• They give the reader the opportunity to practice individual words from the story.
• Having three separate lists that group like words together will help the reader see the similarities between words that are alike.
• They provide parents with a starting approach for how they can practice reading with their child.

Finally, at the back of the book there is a page that gives the number of words in the story and has the entire story on one page. This is great because it gives the reader an opportunity to read the story for a second time in a new way. This time the story will have no illustrations, which means the reader will need to focus entirely on reading the words and not looking to the illustrations for clues on what’s happening in the story.

Little Blossom Stories are a great option for parents looking to introduce short, well-written stories to children at the beginning stages of learning to read. If you’re looking for additional resources check out our past article about the Early Bird Stories series, our Learning to Read booklist or visit the library for a staff recommendation.