In past posts, I have shared some of our homemade books to supplement DSE’s See and Learn Reading Program. Sometimes, however, kids like to read from “real” books. Adapting real books is a great way to motivate them to read. Natalie Hale, author of Whole Child Reading gives some excellent guidelines for adapting books. My nephew Aidan, for example, LOVES the movie Cars. So my sister and I adapted several Cars books for him, which he was so excited to read.

Today I’m sharing some adapted books which your kids may find highly motivating:

Here are some sample pages:

From Disney’s Cars Movie: Go, go, go!

Berenstain Bear’s Big Bear, Small Bear:

Dick and Jane, Something Funny:

I’ve done the grunt work: simplified the text, typed the text in extra large font, and made flash cards to teach your child to read by sight.

You just need to:

• purchase the book(s)
• download the text pages
• print them on sticker paper (one page at a time, or your printer might get jammed),
• cut out the text boxes,
• and stick them into the book, covering the original text.

So here are eight adapted books to motivate your emerging reader:

The easiest books are the Dick and Jane books. Next, introduce Big, Bear, Small Bear. Then, introduce the Cars books in the order presented above.

Hope your kids like them!