Books like The Enormous Turnip (Usborne First Reading, Level Three)

It is a level 1 book of the ‘Read it to yourself range’ therefore it holds large and short text, large colourful pictures and repetitive text to build confidence in starting to read. This book is good because of its simplicity, the first page has a colourful page with all the characters: The old woman, the old man, the girl, the boy, the dog and the enormous turnip. The use of the word ‘the’ makes all characters equal and states early who will be in the story.The old man plants turnip seeds where one grows very large which he wants for tea therefore he must pull the turnip out of the ground where it has grown; the plot of the book is therefore clear from the first piece of text from the story.The man however cannot pull the turnip and asks the old women to help where ‘they pulled and pulled, but they couldn’t pull it up’ (Holmes, 12). This sequence is then repeated with the women asking the boy to help pull the turnip where again ‘they pulled and pulled, but they couldn’t pull it up’ (Holmes, 16). This repetition continues with the boy asking the girl to help pull the turnip, and the girl asking the final character the dog to pull the turnip. The reiteration gains confidence where beginner readers practice reading. Recurrence of words or rhymes speeds up the recognition of words and reaffirms a child’s comprehension of the text. Readers may not realise that they are not reading a great quantity of words yet the repetition in the text speeds up their reading and improves their confidence in reading other texts. Finally, the five characters pull up the turnip and all have it for tea which concludes the story which was clear from the beginning. The first level of this range of texts presents a small number of repeated words which are supported by pictures to help with reading. Many unknown words could be worked out by sounding as they are many first story telling words learnt by school.This book is very good for a child in the Early Foundation stage or a child struggling in the later stages of Key Stage 1 where they can build confidence and predict what will happen next in the story by the predictability of the book. The book’s predictability can limit anticipation within the plot of the story which limits the enjoyment perhaps in shared reading with an adult or advanced child.