I was asked recently if we would like to review a special book from Love2Read. After looking at their site which offers bespoke picture books with uploaded photographs and words that you choose yourself, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one and said yes please!

Obviously the bespoke nature and being able to put our own photographs inside the book was very appealing but what I was most drawn to was the ‘learning to read’ element! Florence has started to read and write and is doing superbly well for her age. She has only just turned 4 and can spell lots of three and four letter words both by writing them down herself and by reading them in books. Something which I have found helps her to learn words is seeing the same words used lots of times in her reading books.

The books at Love2Read have four different stories to choose from all relating to people they will know. You can choose a book about ‘My Dad’, ‘My Mum’, ‘My Gran’ or ‘I Love’. Each page will start with these two words so they get to know those words first and can build up their knowledge of the other words over time.

We chose the ‘I Love…’ book and had a picture of a different member of our family for each page. Florence learned how to read the repetitive ‘I Love’ words and then worked on the other words by using the pictures to help and then becoming familiar with what the letters look like to go with each picture.

Inside the book on each page it reads ‘I Love…’ followed by a different member of our family!

At the end of the book the last page encourages you to look at the letters and words again.

It’s an excellent first reading book with a real difference because it’s personal to them! The people at Love2Read say:

‘The aim of each unique book is to help your child develop a love of reading. It does this by presenting photographs which reflect your child’s world and relating them to simple words. Research shows that if your child loves books they will learn to read much faster and you will be encouraging a lifelong love of reading.

The key words in each book are known as high frequency words which are some of the first words your child will be taught to recognise when they start school. As they start to recognise these key words on sight (also know as the ‘look and say’ method of learning) their confidence builds.

Over the years the way of teaching children to learn to read has changed, although the current favoured method in British primaries is through phonics there is still a lot of emphasis on comprehension, high frequency words (often referred to as tricky words) and reading for pleasure.’

When we ordered our book on line it took just about 10 minutes for me to make it as I wanted. Three days later the book arrived in the post and it’s excellent quality! I like the way the site tells you if a picture isn’t good enough in quality and helps you every step of the way in this manner!

We’re very impressed and also think the book would make a lovely present and keepsake for a Grandparent or friend! Lovely!

The children enjoying their book with Daddy!

We were sent a book from Love2Read for the purpose of an honest review.

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