Under the Chistmas Tree: I Spy for the Beginning Reader

I spy two words that rhyme:

Two Horses
Bell That's Blue
Gift

Christmas fun and reading practice--it's a no brainer for the stocking-stuffing friends and family of young children.

Scholastic Press is there with its adaptations of its longer books for picture riddle fans aimed directly at the beginning reader. In I Spy Santa Claus (Scholastic Reader, Level 1), for example, excerpts from Jean Marzollo's and Walter Wick's popular I Spy Christmas: A Book of Picture Riddles, are aimed at the early independent reader--with shortened rhyming clues and zoomed-in picture details selected from their original books for older readers:

In his spin-off series, Can You See What I See?, Walter Wick has also tailored his Can You See What I See? The Night Before Christmas to craft an emergent reader's version, Can You See What I See? Christmas Read-and-Seek (Scholastic Reader Level 1).

Wick's clues don't feature Marzollo's- rhyming clues, but he does offer a carefully controlled vocabulary, with a very useful picture glossary Word List appended to help beginning readers decode and learn sight words embedded in the text. As usual, Wick's photo illustrations are challenging--his train, for example, is neither a real train nor a toy choo-choo, but is formed solely of Christmas goodies--no easy object to spot! His photographs, as always, are quaint, engaging, and complex, teaching concentration and analytical thinking.