Beehive Reader (TOS Review)

Treehouse Review Week

Beehive Reader 1: Description and customer reviews, ordering information
See inside the book
Correlation with All About Spelling
All About Spelling Home Page

If you've followed the TOS reviews here, you'll already know that we like the All About Spelling program, written by Marie Rippel.

Review Crew members recently received a copy of Beehive Reader 1, by Marie Rippel with Renée LaTulippe, which was written to correlate with All About Spelling (see the link above). The book, published in 2009 by Takeaway Press, has already won a Moonbeam Children's Book Award, and from the customer comments it sounds like it has been a hit with both young and older children. More readers and a teacher's guide are in production and should be available by the end of this year.

You don't need to be using All About Spelling to use the Beehive Reader 1 with a beginning or struggling reader; the stories are fun to read by themselves, not too babyish, and the black-and-white illustrations are appealing. Because it was designed to work with AAS lessons, the vocabulary isn't as limited as some of the old sight-word readers; but it's less hit and miss than some of the commercial beginning-reader books. Great attention has been paid to making the hardcover book beginning-reader-friendly: the paper is non-glare, the words have subtle underlining for those with tracking difficulties, and the line breaks try to make phrasing as natural as possible.

Crayons doesn't need a practice reader, but she enjoyed the stories anyway. Her favourite was "Frank Shrank." When I asked her about it, she practically recited the whole story back to me.

Cost: $19.95 from the publisher.

For more reviews of Beehive Reader 1 and All About Spelling, see the Review Crew home page.

Dewey's Disclaimer: This book was received free for review purposes. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.