Customer Reviews

DK Readers: Tale of a Tadpole (Level 1: Beginning to Read)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book works well as a non-fiction read-aloud for preschoolers. Great photos keep their attention as the book briefly, but thoroughly, describes the environment & life of a frog from egg to mature frog. Wallace does a better job than some similar books at providing a bit of a story-line to go along with all of the facts.

"Tale of a Tadpole" combines excellent full-color photographs with a simple text by Karen Wallace in order to tell the story of a tadpole's life cycle. The result is a delightful book for beginning readers.

Like the other books in this series, "Tale of a Tadpole" includes a "Picture Word List" at the end. This is basically a summary of vocabulary words with a photograph to illustrate each word: "gills," "eye," etc. The main text of the book begins with the newly laid eggs, and depicts the tadpole (and sometimes his siblings) hatching, evading predators, and undergoing the marvelous metamorphosis into a full-grown frog.

The photography is superb. Both "action shots" and more relaxed scenes are skillfully captured. And our star tadpole/frog is a most appealing hero! Overall, I highly recommend this book both for its educational value and for its charm.

This is another of the Eyewitness Readers series. Labeled as Level 1 --Beginning to Read-- I think that it would be a little too much for a real beginning reader. [I think of a real beginner as one who might start with the first Bob Books.]

First, the sentences are a little long and second, the vocabulary is a little advanced. There are words such as: hundreds, golden-skinned, dragonfly, snatches, stickleback, nostril, hungry and tongue.

Here is an example of text from page 22 so you can judge the level for yourself.

Frogs must keep their skin slimy.
He hops back in the pond
and swims for a while.
Then he climbs onto a log.

Three Stars. [C+]. A good selection for children of all ages who interested in all things Froggy. The pictures good, but actually prefer Alex Vern's book, "Where Do Frogs Come From". [We found the pictures even better, and the text more suitable for early readers.]

The text in this book is better for readers with a little experience under their belts. [Early 1st Grade? Though as we all know, there is a huge variation in reading levels at these young ages.]

While living in Africa we would often rescue frogs from our pool. Sometimes eggs had already been laid and the eggs were wrapped in a clear jelly. In the stream near our home we would collect tadpoles and take them home to show mom. Sometimes we found what we thought were miniature frogs. They were just baby frogs and we were sent back to the stream to release them so they could grow up and be productive insect hunters.

Yes, there is a certain wonder in watching animals grow up in the wild and that is how it should be in an ideal world. This same wonder can be transmitted through books with stunning photographs.

Eyewitness Readers are designed in conjunction with leading literary experts. The engaging easy-to-read stories are accompanied by photographs which show every detail in full color and with great clarity. DK is known for this great quality. This book is level one and is for children who are just beginning to read.

Level one contains picture dictionary boxes, word repetition, limited vocabulary and simple sentences. Children can begin to read at the early age of three, but some don't learn to read until they are 8.

Learning to read by the phonics method allows children to start reading earlier and before children will be able to read this book they will need to know phonics. This is also a fun book you can read to your child. The phonics game sold here at Amazon can help children get a head start in life in the department of reading. First children learn to read and then they read to learn.

~The Rebecca Review

Great pictures for the child to understand where the frogs come from. Used with the grandchildren

I wanted this to be a book my child could read to me easily, as we are moving on from phonics readers and the like. The pictures are great, as is the case with most DK books. The only word beyond my five year old was 'tongue' which was one of the picture words (i.e. one of about eight words that are clearly defined by a picture within the book). There were no 'gh' words or other tricky ones to trip a beginning reader up.