Help Your Child Learn to Read Easily with the Help of Cute and Cuddly Alpacas.

See shy April in her smart red halter. See two of the boys having a fight. Look right into Geisha’s mouth as she yawns. Find out what happens to their toenails…..The alpacas are fascinating and engaging

Learn how to teach your child the sound made by each letter of the alphabet – a vital building block for reading and spelling.

The more quickly they learn this step, the more quickly and easily they progress in reading, writing and spelling. When your child is confident at school they are happy to engage in learning in all areas, and this sets the scene for the next 13 years of schooling.

Your child grows up with a greater number of choices open to them and, as a result, has a greater chance of leading a happy and successful life as a result of these choices.

Isn’t that what we all want for our children?

If your child confuses sounds and letter names they will struggle with reading, writing and spelling.  Using letter names to try and sound out ‘cat’ you get: see-ay-tee, which will never result in the word ‘cat’.

Introducing “Aa is for Alpacas” – the only alphabet book on the market that measures up to my requirements.

In brief:

• It is accurate.  Common errors are /g/ is for “giraffe” – we need to teach the basic hard /g/ (as in ‘get) first and teach the rules and exceptions later; /i/ is for “ice” – the sound of /i/ (as in ‘it’) is not the same sound as in “ice” – the /ie/ sound is taught later.
• It has clear (and appealing) photographs, so your child has a clear visual “mental peg” on which to hang each sound.
• There is one sound per page, to avoid confusion.  Busy pages interfere with your child storing a clear picture in their memory.
• Each consonant sound is followed by a vowel – no consonant clusters, such as /st, pr, bl/etc.  Some children find it difficult to clearly perceive  two consonant sounds side by side, so they need just a consonant followed by a vowel.
• There is an extensive User Guide, which I have never seen in any other book.  This goes into detail about the difference between sounds and letters and when to use each; how to teach letter names and then use the book to teach the sounds (sound-letter links); why it is important to read to your children; the importance of listening; how to use the book at different ages and stages; some facts about alpacas; and more.
• Each sound has an accompanying comment, to use as a conversation starter.  If you talk about the pictures and related topics with your child, they are much more likely to remember the sounds and pictures.
• It is appealing to adults as well as children, so this makes the book no hardship for you to read it as a regular favourite bedtime book, so your child can effortlessly absorb sound-letter links.
• It also covers the often-confused sounds of /sh/, /ch/ and /th/, which most other books do not.
• It has its own Facebook page.
• It also has a presence on YouTube, thanks to Wodonga Library.  After an introduction, I read the book with the camera on each page as it is being read.  This is really valuable because you can listen to it to make quite sure that you are saying the sounds correctly and not muddling them up with letter names.  (Warning: Cameras and I do NOT have a happy relationship.  Just close your eyes and listen to the introduction – it’s important!)  To see the video, go to the top of this page and click on Video.