The B on Your Thumb: 60 Poems to Boost Reading and Spelling

The B on Your Thumb is a book of 60 hilariously illustrated rhymes and delightful ditties to boost early reading—each poem teaches a specific sound, spelling, or rule.

About The B on Your Thumb: 60 Poems to Boost Reading and Spelling

The B on Your Thumb is a book of 60 illustrated rhymes to boost early reading—each poem teaches a specific sound, spelling, or rule. Using rhythm and wordplay, they promote phonics awareness, thinking skills, and literacy. This book delights young readers with the fun and silliness of the English language.

An introduction instructs grown-ups on how to use the book and extensive activities at the end allow children to build on their learning. Grouped into four categories—sounds, silent letters and secrets, spellings, and words that sound the same—the poems include:

• See with Two Ees
• The Story of Q and U
• The Rain in the Train
• Ridiculous Ph
• Enough of Uff
• Certainly a C
• The Most ImportANT
• Which Witch

Our Thoughts

Can we just be honest and say the English language has some of the most hardest rules to follow (silent letters, spellings, words that sound the same). It can be so difficult to explain the reasoning around this to children, because that is just the way it is. This book helps adults and children tackle these rules in a fun way.

This book starts with a very helpful introduction for adults. They teach you how to use this book and how to read it aloud. This made a world of a difference when reading with my child. I loved that they also encouraged you to be creative, read them out of order, and to not overdo it – read just a few rhymes at a time to help your child absorb what they are learning. The note to children made me giggle (please be patient with us adults because we too make mistakes!).

I loved the rhymes, they made it so much easier to be silly and take a somewhat hard topic to teach and make it fun. We even sang a few and had a few good laughs (oi, oi, oi!!). The illustrations are perfect for young readers and match the tone of the book, fun and engaging.

The B on Your Thumb is a fun, engaging book that will make you laugh while learning.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Colette Hiller is a writer, arts producer, and mother of twins. Her arts projects have reached hundreds of thousands of participants—she is the woman who put pianos and ping-pong tables in countless locations across the UK, and is also the mind behind the hit Talking Statues project.

Her children’s rhymes have been featured on BBC Words and Pictures and her children’s LP, Applehead, has been a hit with kids across the world, selling over 50,000 copies. An advocate of early learning, Colette believes that even very young children are receptive to the joy of wordplay (she taught her own twins to read by the time they were three).

Tor Freeman is a London-based illustrator. In 2012 she was awarded the Sendak Fellowship. In 2017 she won the Guardian Graphic Short Story Prize. Her books include the Digby Dog and Olive series.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to facilitate this review, all opinions expressed are my own.