Part of the Cat & Friends series
Laura Gehl’s Cat and Friends series is one of my go-to recommendations for beginning readers (Guided reading levels A-C). My favorite book, Cat Has a Plan, is a laugh-out-loud story is about scheming Cat trying to steal a toy dinosaur from Dog. Their battle over the coveted dinosaur escalates quickly, with both parties employing not-so-nice tricks: Halloween monster masks, butterfly nets, fake spiders, and lots of traps. When they lose the dinosaur toy, Cat and Dog must work together to find a solution.
She is able to a make a full engaging, super silly, story with a beginning, middle, and end in just 100 words in total. Only having 16 unique words, the books gives beginning readers ample opportunities to sound out different “-ap” word family. And yet, despite only having 16 unique words, the story is anything but repetitive. Gehl manages to surprise the readers with every turn of the page. Each book lists the word families in the book, as well as sight words, and bonus words. And don’t miss the bonus comprehension questions at the end.