The problem with a good portion of readers designed for very young children who have just started reading is that they are so mind-numbingly boring, too simplistic to interest adults (or even children) for very long. In addition, they also tend to be cheaply-designed, falling apart after the slightest bit of hard play.

Marie Rippel, designer of the relatively new and very unique All About Learning curriculum, certainly recognized these pitfalls and sought to avoid them in the design of the readers for the new All About Reading-Level 1 . It’s obvious at first glance that she succeeded in creating an original, durable alternative to the normal fare.

The three books in the Level 1 kit are tightly and sleekly bound in blue, durable and neat– you won’t find any tiny, flimsy pamphlets here; Ms. Rippel clearly understands that such an important first step forward deserves a pretty design. These books  look like they’d almost be perfectly in place on a grown-up’s bookshelf, which is important– children, after all, rarely want to read baby books; they want to read older books.

However, in spite of the older design, the contents of the book are necessarily brief– simple, but not simplistic. The first volume of Level 1,  Run, Bug, Run, has fourteen short stories. Every page is illustrated (drawing duty divided between three different artists), and contains anywhere from about three to ten words. This is all pretty basic for beginner readers, but the difference in this curriculum is that the stories are actually thoughtful, and combined with the adorable illustrations, they become irresistibly engaging.

In addition to the appealing composition, these little readers clearly strive to teach students in every way possible.  The stories make frequent use of words that probably aren’t familiar to young readers (i.e. “yak,” “yam”), but the illustrations go a long way in showing what strange words mean– so not only do these books teach reading, but they also expand vocabulary.

The books from All About Reading are the perfect answer to children who are impatient with the overly simplistic early readers but are not on an advanced enough level to read the books designed for older or more advanced students.

For more information about All About Reading: Level One in particular, have a look at the PDF samples offered by the website.

Click here for more information on All About Reading: Level One.

For more information about the All About Learning curriculum in general, visit our page!

____________________

This review was written by Sara Simmons ( homeschooled all the way through high school and now an English major at Middle Tennessee State University)