Yesterday morning, I paused outside of my daughter’s door to hear my girls reading. Without the help of a teacher, they were participating in a shared reading of a repetitive text. My seven year old used her decoding skills to target any unfamiliar words while my four year old built her reading confidence and sight word knowledge by reciting a phrase that repeated over and over throughout the book.

I am always on the look-out for books that are full of repetitive text. Some pre-readers blossom under the tutelage of titles such as the Bob Books that are full of , decodebale, controlled vocabulary and there is a certainly a place in every reader’s diet for books such as these. Equally important, though (if not more so for some readers) are books that the children will consider “real books”, those with good pictures and a true story.

 As pre-readers ‘memorize’ and then repeat a line that appears throughout the text, magic is at work. The young child is matching words to text and developing a concept of word. With some help, children can learn to point word by word as they read. If they get ahead of their finger, they’ll start to recognize the words they’ve skipped. As children see the same print over and over again, many of the words on the page will become sight words without having to go through flashcard after flashcard.

Many popular children’s books such as Brown Bear Brown Bear and I Went Walking contain repetitive text but if you pay close attention (or have a seven year old that does!), you’ll come to see repetitive text in many, many books. Look to see that the print is large and well spaced for these early readers and you’re ready to go.

Our current favorite book full of repetive text is Karen Beaumont’s Who Ate All the Cookie Dough.

I  always love to hear about new books so please go to the comment sections to share your favorite books with repetitive text.