“It’s Halloween, Dear Dragon” is a Beginning-To-Read series book. Even though my daughter is past this level, we found some trouble areas for her. Not in the actual story, but in the back of the book. There is a list of Reading Reinforcement items. My daughter can read and understand contractions, but going through the list in the back of the book, she had trouble telling me what words were in contractions such as shouldn’t.
This 32-page simple textbook would be great for any child just beginning to read. With only 3-4 simple sentences per page, it is a great book that has common sight words throughout the story. Each page tells of actions and then the picture shows the action. For example: “Look up here. Do you see what I see? Something red. Something yellow.” The picture shows a little boy pointing up toward red and yellow leaves.
After the little boy looks up at the leaves, he then looks down and plays in the leaves with a dragon. He puts leaves on the dragon’s head to make him look funny. Soon the boy rakes the leaves to help his father. The little dragon helps by setting the leaves on fire. The dragon is pulled in a wagon by the boy to go get something.
They pick up the pumpkins, little and big. He shows the pumpkins to his father and asks for help. They then carve the pumpkins into silly faces. The boy asks his mother to make something too. She makes a pumpkin pie. Wearing a skeleton costume, the boy wants the dragon to guess what he is. They head out trick or treating. The dragon wins the costume contest. The boy flies around the sky with the dragon who now is shown with wings. The next page shows a picture of a witch and cat flying in the sky too. The story ends at bedtime. The picture shows the dragon and the boy lying in bed with great big smiles!
The Reading Reinforcement items in the back of the book include “Phonemic awareness, Phonics: the letter H’s, Vocabulary: Contractions, Fluency: Shared Reading, Text Comprehension: Discussion Time.” Each area has suggestions for parents and caregivers to go over this with their child. There is also a word list to practice on the last page.
The illustrations are very simple to go along with the text on the page. All in color, large, block type of pictures. Some of the page backgrounds are white and some are in other solid colors. The sentences throughout the book range from one word “Here” to seven words “Oh, what a happy Halloween, dear dragon.” I do not suggest this book as a good story time book as there is not much to it, but would recommend it for children learning to read as the words are simple and easy to sound out. Very little text on each page so the child would not be overwhelmed.
A great children’s book for children just learning to read. Build their confidence with a simple book about fall. Short sentences would not overwhelm a beginning reader.
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