Reading Bear is complete!

[cokers4life]

Daddude, 

Thanks for readingbear.org.  I was wondering if you knew of any free phonics readers that followed the order of your phonics lessons.  I found these here:  http://donpotter.net/pdf/bplitebooks.pdf
However, I was hoping for something more.  These would work fine, but I wanted to see if you knew of anything else out there.  Everything else I find is just short vowels and long vowels.  I have looked at the library and I can not find anything suitable.  I really need free.  I have paper and refillable ink cartridges so free printables are great. 

Thanks for any help!

[DadDude]

The word lists are based 95% on the ones in Flesch's Why Johnny Can't Read, as you probably know if you were on Don Potter's site. In fact, you ought to ask Don himself, as he would be the man to know (I don't myself) and report back here!

One thing we've been thinking about doing next is writing a series of readers, one for each word list in Reading Bear. Don't hold your breath...it would be a huge amount of work.

[busyparent]

First of all, I want to say thank you.
I am currently using reading bear with my 4 year old and i already seeing progress.
I cant thank you enough.
i feel bless for such a great program that is free .
thank you thank you thank you !!!

[DadDude]

Thanks evad3 and all of you for your appreciation and encouragement.

Here is the quickly-written text of a possible e-book for Reading Bear. Are there any decent artists here who can work for cheap? Want an illustrating job...again, if you can work for cheap? Seriously.

Here is a text for "short a." It is mostly decodable...it does of course use words like "was," "a," and a few others, but I'm trying to keep the list of such words to a minimum so that it is maximally decodable. In order to keep the story interesting, there will be slides (in parentheses below) in which background is given. These would be read to the child by the software.

--Larry

The Rat in the Bag
==============
Sam was a man.
Sam was the dad of Pat.
Pat had a rat. The rat was Tam-Tam.
(They decided to take a trip to the beach.)
Pat and Sam had ham in a bag.
(They packed bread and ham for sandwiches.)
They had gas in the van.
(Then they got in the van and left for the beach!)
Sam had a map.
(The map told them how to get to the beach.)
The map was in his lap.
The van ran and ran.
(At last, they got to the beach.)
Sam had a nap and a tan.
(Pat wanted to see the beach.)
Pat ran.
 (While Pat and Sam were gone, the rat climbed into the lunch bag.)
The rat sat in the bag.
The rat had the ham.
(The rat ate up the sandwiches!)
Pat was sad.
“Tam-Tam!” Pat said. “I am mad. You bad rat!”
(Sam got out more bread.)
“It is O.K.,” said Sam. Sam had some jam.
“Pass the jam!” said Pat.
(He made a new jam sandwich.)
“Pat,” said Sam, “the rat is fat!”
 (Then they drove back home.)
The rat sat on a mat in the van.
Pat sat and had a nap.
(Same drove the van home.)
The End

[Korrale4kq]

What kind of illustrations are we talking? Are we thinking simple black line drawings similar to Bob Books. Or are you wanting involved art. Obviously the simpler the art work the cheaper. I do know several artists that I could try and get a quote from.

[DadDude]

Basically, simple cartoons--nothing more fancy than you see on Starfall. They would have to illustrate the sentences very well, so there would have to be that level of detail.

I'm inclined to think we might get help via 99designs or a similar site...right now we're inclined to pursue it, actually. I'm actually at the house of Reading Bear's benefactor. We're going to do a launch party tomorrow at dinnertime. If anybody is in the Memphis area and wants to come, let me know.

[cokers4life]

Something like that ebook would be perfect.  I hope it all goes well.  Its so wonderful to see people working so hard to make literacy easy and free!  I sent Don Potter an email.  Still waiting on a response, but his website is full of great resources.  Its keeping me busy.

[lzp11]

Yes some readers would be fantastic to go along with this!  I am excited and looking forward to them - although I can imagine it will be another big project!

In the meantime, in case people haven't seen them, Starfall also has free learn to read ebooks which people may be familiar with.  But in addition, for those who upgrade to paid membership of More Starfall, there are lots and lots of phonics books there too.  http://more2.starfall.com/m/more-phonics/unit1-demo/load.htm?f

Although this looks like only 14 books, there are actually far more than this - there are lots of different albums - I think about 100 readers in total. 

I have found that the extra fee ($35 per year) for more starfall has been really worth it, as my DD absolutely loves the additional material on numbers, colours and these additional books.  Plus music and some good maths sections as well.

[DadDude]

The local Memphis paper gave us some very nice coverage: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/sep/28/web-based-reading-program-targets-young-learners/

[Neesy]

Dad Dude,

This is SO strange!  Spent the weekend online reviewing phonics programs.  Found Don Potter's site and blend phonics, downloaded all of his lessons, then on the welltrained mind site, ran across someone talking about  "abc the key" which in turn was advertising Reading Bear (huh?)  LOL!  THEN.... saw a reference to don potter somewhere connected to "reading bear"...double HUH!?  So.... I went back to Don's site and THERE IT WAS...Reading Bear!  So far, I like RB the most.  I have been teaching kids to read for almost 20 years now, but currently have two special needs boys that needed something "else".  

Okay, so I LOVE the program so far....except.... sorry to be probably the ONLY negative commenter on here about it, but I HAVE to say something about one teeny tiny thing.  See if this sounds familiar:  "f--a--t.....fat..... The man is very fat....." along with not one, but TWO pictures of fat men's bellies...with NO SHIRT ON.....one side view with his gut hanging down over his belt and one front view...a video of him rubbing his fat gut and jiggling it ever so gently.  First of alll.....UGGGH !  Seriously, WHO wants to see THAT!?  Second of all, we teach our children that it is not nice to call people f--a---t!  Yes, the fact is...some people are....BUT.....still.....it is not OKAY to SAY SO.  !  You really couldn't find a fat cat or a fat elephant, pot-bellied pig, or even a fat dog?  The dog is very fat.  The pot-bellied pig is very fat.  The elephant is very fat.The CAT IS VERY FAT?  See?  Simple.  Okay..... I am done.  Going back to view the rest of the samples.  Maybe we will just skip over f--a--t for now.  LOL!

Regardless, Reading Bear seems to be really amazing and well done....overall.  I am hoping this is the ONLY.... what I consider to be innappropriate....example on there.
  
Thank you for all of your hard work!
Sincerely,
Denise (aka - Neesy )  

[Frukc]

Dear DadDude, I came to report on success

I did not use ReadingBear directly because we use another language. So I prepared a powerpoint presentation using the concept I got from ReadingBear.  It is here http://forum.brillkids.com/downloads/?sa=view;id=9287
Animated clip arts were very attractive to my two year old and generally he liked these presentations. I added few new words after every few days

At least I THINK that I was using your concept

Since ~ 12 months, I am also showing sight words but our learning is very relaxed. He is an active child, and my only long-term approach is "do Something every day, some exposure to written words and/or some new information".

And now he (2,10)  is reading. He is decoding unknown words consisting of 3 - 4 letters. If words are longer, he is guessing. With known words, he is reading couplets and triplets. I do not test; he is doing it without my request.

I am surprised because he is not talking very well. He is talking short simple sentences with rather wrong grammar. My first child (early talker, now 5,5) had much larger vocabulary and much larger collection of sight words but she started to read only at 4,5.

[teachingmykids]

I also find it hard to find corresponding readers to go with reading bear. Right now I am using the Don Potter site but it doesn't match up. I think it is a great idea to have readers to go along with it.

[kiwimum]

Okay, so I LOVE the program so far....except.... sorry to be probably the ONLY negative commenter on here about it, but I HAVE to say something about one teeny tiny thing.  See if this sounds familiar:  "f--a--t.....fat..... The man is very fat....." along with not one, but TWO pictures of fat men's bellies...with NO SHIRT ON.....one side view with his gut hanging down over his belt and one front view...a video of him rubbing his fat gut and jiggling it ever so gently.  First of alll.....UGGGH !  Seriously, WHO wants to see THAT!?  Second of all, we teach our children that it is not nice to call people f--a---t!  Yes, the fact is...some people are....BUT.....still.....it is not OKAY to SAY SO.  !  You really couldn't find a fat cat or a fat elephant, pot-bellied pig, or even a fat dog?  The dog is very fat.  The pot-bellied pig is very fat.  The elephant is very fat.The CAT IS VERY FAT?  See?  Simple.  Okay..... I am done.  Going back to view the rest of the samples.  Maybe we will just skip over f--a--t for now.  LOL!

I just want to add that I don't mind that there is a picture of a FAT Belly on there at all. I did think to myself "ha, I've never seen that in a children's program before" but I don't think it has to be removed and replaced.
I suppose this is the difference between a free on-line resource made from the love of reading rather than a mass produced product where they have to take anything out that could possible offend people other wise people wouldn't buy the product. Its just one example of FAT and you skip past it fast enough that I don't see it as a problem.
It did make me think "oh what else will I come across on here" and i guess that's a good thing cos it keeps us on our toes more when we are showing our children things on the internet for the fist time.

[seastar]

We were in a cafe a few days ago. After finishing her snack, my toddler said, very loudly, "LOOK AT MY BIG FAT BELLY" over and over again!  I blame you, DadDude! 

[CVMomma]

I have to add our F-A-T story also

As we were shopping, a man was walking towards us.  When he was about 3 feet in front of us, my daughter says,  (in that LOUD tone that only two year olds can just when you don't want them to)  "Oh, look Momma!  That man has a fat belly, just like Reading Bear!!!!"  while pointing at the oncoming man.  I think (hope) I saw a faint smile cross his face as he undoubtedly saw a look of horror on my face.    We had talked about the fact that just because someone is fat, doesn't mean that we say it out loud.  I guess that part of the lesson didn't stick.    I did remind her of that fact again!


Other than that... we LOVE Reading Bear!!!

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