Letterland Stories Level 3a: 1 (Letterland at Home) Paperback – 1 Aug. 2010

When I first came across the "Letterland" range, I thought they seemed rather old-fashioned, but my children love them and I like the way that they look genuinely delighted when their old friend, the "Kicking K" apears.This book cleverly introduces sound blends through a series of brightly-illustrated stories that really do make learning fun and having witnessed how successful "Letterland" is at teaching children to read, I would have no hesitation in recomending this book.

My kids used to read the letterland books at primary school, and now, thanks to this, my grandson is enjoying it too. The use of characters to identify the letters, and incorporating them in the stories makes reading them with young children quite fun. I don't know if they still use the books in schools, but if they do, our grandson will be ready when he starts school in the autumn.

Having a daughter ready to turn three, I was quite pleased to see a book to encourage reading for review on the Vine. From the cover and illustrations inside, the characters incorporate the letter they begin with aiding recognition. This is a novel idea. From the backcover, it is implied that the stories are written with phonics in mind ie certain stories will concentrate on certain sounds called phenomes.This was all very promising until the stories themselves are read. Here is an example First story: "The Queen's Treat" introduces Quarrelsome Queen and Kicking King within the first two pages. These non-memorable folks are obviously flimsily invented to incorporate the letters Q and K respectively (see the C on the cat's face in the picture? Quarrelsome Queen is the same, Kicking King's body is made of the K). It is nonsensical. The story is convoluted and hold no meaning. Sentences are constructed to hold at least one word with the phenomes the story was made to concentrate on. This is a invitation to switch off.In the second story in rhyme "Greedy Seagulls" they invent a metal monster named "Mike". His friend is "Sammy the Snake". Rhymes transparently ends with the featured "phenomes".The last one is much more interesting as Noisy Nick looks for his missing socks but has to contend with the distraction of his dog. N seems to be the only featured letter. Accordingly, the featured phenomes appear less, but this actually allows the story to flow much more readily.This book falls far short of what it promises. If was of the same standard as the final story throughout, I would think much better of it. But I cannot see any reason why anyone would pick it up for a second time, for the fun of reading. Compare this with the Oxford Reading Tree series (link below) and the difference is stark. It is such a waste of a good idea to feature the letter in the character's illustration, yet even this is executed very poorly. Oxford Reading Tree - Read at Home Full Pack - 31 Book Collection Boxed Set RRP 123.69 ( Level 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 Includes The Snowman, Funny Fish, The Monster Hunt, Featuring Kipper, Chip, Biff, Floopy and others) (Read at Home)

Love the stories. They are a little trite if you are not aware of the whole Letterland reading scheme. The children loved the simplistic story-lines and had a good go at reading them independently. The stories are not really ones to share at bed-time, more an aid to encourage independent reading. My 5 year old felt great when they could read some of the words on his own

Check out the current 'LOOK INSIDE' facility above.~ Letterland Stories~ Level 3a

Why the subject title? Because it is. No reading scheme will work unless the child gets positive reinforcement at home, and a reading book left in the bag may as well be toilet paper. The Letterland scheme at least helps caring adults to help their children; from the advice given inside the front cover as to how the book can be best utilised to the information on the back as to the letter combinations targeted in the book (on the back cover) the scheme assists parents to help children to recognise letters and letter combinations.The stories are simple yet interesting; the illustrations are bright and attractive, and the book is aimed at getting a child to want to read it without assistance.This the Letterland scheme does.You need more than one of these books; but I would recognise the value of a set of these to schools in developing the reading skills of young children.SO! If you are planning the school reading scheme - you could do a lot worse than going the Letterland route.

These have been around for years. With the current focus being on phonetics this doesn't quite hit the mark, also the pictures are very old fashioned ... the whole presentation looks old to a child and not very appealing.The story is ok but's hard to get attention for a small person if they don't like the look of something.

This book was filthy. It had red goo and brown spots on the pages. Lots of markings. This book should have never been sold.