Brand New Readers Red Set: Some of My Favorite Books for Beginner Readers

Brand New Readers are some of the best books I've found for early readers. These books also offer support for parents helping a beginner reader. The front cover has a scripted introduction for an adult to share before reading the book. This engages the reader and improves comprehension. The back cover has suggestions for adults to make first-time reading easy and fun.

An entire version of The Chase is available for free online.
Check out this free copy of The Chase

The Chase is just one of ten books included in the Brand New Reader Red Set. Did you check it out? The introduction gets a new reader ready for the story and some of the words he or she will be reading. What did you think about the Helping Your Brand-new Reader tips? These tips are for readers who cannot sound out all of the words. Early readers benefit from these types of books, but I strongly encourage some phonics teaching and sounding out training.

You can teach phonics and sounding out in these books. I suggest making words with magnetic letters, writing words and pointing to some words to help a child learn some phonics rules and letter to sound relationships. One very important tip included on the back cover of these Brand-New Reader books is: "Give your child lots of chances to read the story again and again. The more your child reads, the more confident he or she will become."



Here's a list of common two-letter phonograms you can teach in each of the ten stories from the Brand-New Readers Red Set.

The Chase - ou, ay, er
Edna's New Coat - er, ew, oa, oo
The Big Fish - ou, oo, ow
Tabby Cat at Night - ee, ay, ai, al, ng, ow
Edna Dances - ur, ng, ar, oo, ee, ea
Piggy's Bedtime - ea, oo, ow
Snow Mouse - ou, er, or, oa, ar, ow
Water Balloons - er, oo
Yucky Ball - er, ew
In and Out - er, ou, ay

Brand New Readers Red Set: Some of My Favorite Books for Beginner Readers

Phonograms and Blends

A beginning reader will benefit from practice with a few two letter phonograms and blends. Most readers will learn phonograms and blends not specifically taught if they are given the opportunity to practice and over learn sounding out words with some of the most common phonograms and blends.

Phonograms and blends can be introduced, practiced and taught while reading books.

Phonograms and Blends

How to Teach Common Two Letter Phonograms

There are some phonograms that are more common and therefore easier to practice and learn first.
Here are some of the most common phonograms you may want to teach first.
ay - day, play, say, way
ou - out, shout, our, house
oo - boo, moo, too, soon
ow - how, now, cow, brown (Teach the ow of snow after the ow sound in now is taught and practiced.)
er - her, over, sister
ar - car, star, far, farm
ee - tree, bee, see, knee
ai - air, rain

Follow your child's lead. If your child is naturally finding a phonogram or likes to spell a word with a phonogram, start with that one. Do not introduce more than three at a time and make sure your child has learned and loves to find the new phonograms before introducing more.

My favorite books to show a child common phonograms are Put Me in the Zoo, Hop on Pop, and

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? Children love these stories read over and over. Point out phonograms your child knows or is learning when reading these books out loud to your child. 

Remember to practice and make sure your child has a good understanding of new phonograms before trying to teach more. You can practice by showing new phonograms in any book you read out loud. Spell some words together with phonograms. Magnetic letters are fun to spell words, mix them up, and put them back together. Find some early reader books with the phonograms your child is learning to read.

How to Teach Common Two Letter Phonograms

What Are Phonograms?

Phonogram Definition: Phonograms are one letter or a group of letters that make a sound.

This site shares spelling and sounds of some common phonograms.
Phonogram Page - Daily Phonics 

Are you teaching phonics and phonograms?
Phonograms can be one letter or a group of letters.
You can point out phongrams in some of the books you read out loud.
Single letter sounds are usually taught first.
I like to mix in a few more than one letter phonograms as early as possible.
Start with a few at a time. I like to start with ou, ay, and oo.
Once a reader knows and is comfortable with letters working together it becomes natural to learn and look for letters working together to make one sound.

Here are some free sites to teach phonics.
Starfall
Progressive Phonics
Literactive

Would you like some free phonogram flashcards? You can contact me here, and I will email you the printable sheets. I use heavy paper when printing.

What Are Phonograms?

Teach Phonograms with Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire

The last phonogram post I made was titled Teach Phonograms with Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?


Put Me in the Zoo and Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? are two great books to use to teach phonograms. These are books young children will listen to over and over. You can teach new phonograms each time you read these stories.

I suggested teaching a few phonograms at a time. The first phonogram that stands out in both of these books is oo. The phonogram oo can make more than one sound. The least common sound of oo is the sound found in the words: book, look, took, good, and foot. You can tell your child this information, but I think it's best to teach the most common sound first.

If you have a child just getting started with learning phonograms start with oo and show this phonogram in both books as you read these to your child.

Here are the words with the oo phonogram in Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire.
zoo, too
You could show the word good. It has the oo phonogram, but it makes the least common sound.
You could show the words do, you, and two. They rhyme with the words zoo and too. It's great to show children early that some sounds are spelled differently. This teaches an early reader to be flexible with rules.

Teach Phonograms with Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire

Teach r controlled phonograms with Free Online Stories from Starfall

Starfall is one of my favorite free sites to teach children to read. This site has free resources to teach a child about reading.

Starfall has free online games and stories to teach a child r contolled vowel phonograms.

Car Race is available online with animations when you click on the pictures. You can purchase the entire set of Starfall Learn to Read book set on their website. Many times having a hard copy to reread anytime is best for beginning readers.

Starfall has a free game your child should try to teach the r contolled phonogram "ar"!



Surfer Girl is available online with animations when you click on pictures. 

There's a game on Starfall to teach the r controlled phonograms "ir, er, and ur".

My Horse Glory is available online with animations when you click on pictures. 

Find a game to teach the "or" r controlled phonogram and a game to review and sort a mix of r controlled phonograms.
Plus a picture hunt game for "or" words.

Teach r controlled phonograms with Free Online Stories from Starfall

Teach Phonograms with Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? is filled with common two letter phonograms.


Here are the two letter phonograms you can point out while reading Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? to your child. (oo, ow, ou, or, ee, ea, ai, ur, ar, er, ew, oi)

This is a good book to start introducing how two letters can work together to make one sound. You can start by introducing the oo sound.
The letters oo are in a bunch of words in this story.
(moo, rooster, hoo, choo, too, doodle-doo, boom)

ow - Brown, cow, how, owl
ou - about
or - cork, horse, horn, door
ee - bee, feet, eek
ea - squeaky
ai - rain, train
ur - blurp, slurp
ar - smart, hard
er - rooster, wonderful, whisper, butterfly, wonder, thunder
ew - chewing
oi - noise

Most children love this story read to them over and over. You can point out one or two phonograms each time you read the story. This story was one of my children's favorite books. Have fun and let your child help you read this story from memory or from looking at the words.

Teach Phonograms with Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

Common Two Letter Phonogram Video

Beginning readers need to learn letter and vowel sounds to read. The individual sounds of language and the letters that represent these sounds are called phonograms. 

Here's a video I found with the following phonograms. (ee, ea, sh, ch, oo, oo, ou, ar, or, ir, ow, oy, oa, ow, ay, ai)


You can print common two letter phonograms on heavy paper to make your own flashcards.

Visit this link to find free phonogram flashcards to print.

You may want to print your cards on heavy weight paper and use the directions on this page to cut your flashcards.

You will need to cut half an inch off the top and bottom to make the flashcards a uniform size.

When you cut 1/2 inch off the bottom, your paper should be 10 inches long.

Next you cut 2 inch strips.

Cut them in half at 4 1/4 inches.

Stay tuned.

I'll be sharing ways to teach phonograms every Friday for awhile. Please follow or subscribe with email if you don't want to miss a post.

Common Two Letter Phonogram Video