Kingfisher Readers: Seasons. Level 1 product reviews

I won this book from KIWIreviews and received it today. I don't have a child at the beginning to read stage with one child aged 11 and the other only 1 so I just used the book to read to my 1 year old.

The book is very informative at a level suitable for children who are first learning to read explaining the seasons and how long they last and what happens in those seasons. You can tell the book is from the UK due to the order they put the seasons in starting with winter first and making it's way through to Autumn. This doesn't matter though as the seasons still follow the same sequence in both continents.

Seasons have been quite topical in our house at the moment as it is summer for us, but for the children's grandparents who are holidaying in the UK it is snowing and we have had photos of snowmen sent through. This is really my son's first summer so he is definetly learning that summer is fun with all the swimming and icecream.

The book is easy reading for beginning readers and avoids bigger words that would be beyond young readers comprehension. I liked the page at the beginning that lets parents know how to help their children with reading with things to do before, during, and after your child reads the book. Having a teaching background I think this is really important as the more experience children have with reading and being read to the better in my opinion. There are important steps in these instructions such as establishing a purpose for reading and checking for comprehension after reading.

I would definetly buy further books in this series when my son gets to the age where he will begin reading himself as they are really good little books. This one will be put up for now as it is not really suited to a 1 year old having pages that are quite easy to rip but overall a big thumbs up from us :)

This "Seasons" reader is brilliant. We have been reading books from this series whilst on holiday and absolutely love them. This level has been perfect for all three of my girls. Miss One enjoys the pictures and because they are stunning glossy photos they have been great for teaching her the names of objects and animals' etc. Miss Four also enjoys looking at the pictures and we have been using these books to begin teaching her to read.

This book has been a great base to discuss seasons and all the things that are different with each season. Miss Six can easily read these to her sisters so enjoys being teacher as well as practising her reading. Each page has about 2-3 simple sentences that are in large font and double spaced. We all really love the pictures and I love that this reader is factual and informative so we can use these as an educational tool as well as a reader.

I can definitely recommend this book and am hopeful that Miss Six's school will start using this series also.

When I picked up this book about seasons the first thing I looked was for was what they called the season between summer and winter. Thankfully they call it autumn. This book is very English in the photos. Most of the animals New Zealand children will have only read about, but then I suppose for most of our population only a few trees will lose their leaves and snow is something for rural folk down south.

The language is easy enough for my preschoolers to understand without it being dumbed down into baby talk. As a trained primary teacher I like that it is a leveled reader which educates children about the seasons as well as helping them learn to read. My children (2.5 years and 4) enjoyed me reading it to them and it instigated a discussion. I also know that when they are about six or seven years old they will be able to read this independently.

If this had been a book purely for reading to children I would have like to see the correct terms migrate and hibernate used rather than the concept just talked about. I can however see why the author left these out as a leveled reader. As a parent this book is great value for money as it will be read for many years to come and apart from the fashions won't date.