Clarrie Pig’s Day Out by Jen Storer is a fabulous book for phonological awareness!
Clarrie is the main character – a thin, tall man who drives his car, has afternoon tea with a friend and then buys some chickens. This book is beautifully illustrated and appeals to young children. At nearly 30 pages, it is ideal for 5-8 year olds with good attention skills. The text is large and all the rhyming words have been highlighted in a scrabble-letter font.
The premise of the story is that Clarrie keeps getting his words mixed up!
“I go to the moo shop. I mean the goo shop. No, no no! I go to the shoe shop. I buy some shiny new dumb boots.”
All the way through the book, there are opportunities to talk about;
- rhyming words
“I hit a huge pump, stump, no! bump in the road’
You can start generating more rhyming words as an activity here.
2. guessing if the word is right or not
“A bunch of noses?”
Let’s think – is it noses or roses? You can put these words into the sentence to see which one might be right.
3. word families and spelling rules
“In town I park my jar under a flea. It’s a hot day and there’s shade under the flea, no! sea no! tree.”
You can generate lots of ‘ee’ words and talk about their different spelling. ea – flea, sea. ey – key. ee – tree, see, bee.
4. The highlighted rhyming scrabble letters and often CVC words making them easy for early readers. Why not use your own Scrabble (magnetic) letters to spell these words and then change them around to another word in the family?
And that’s the end of the glory!