I love the emergent reader stage! My kids have all been eager to learn to read, especially the younger ones who want to be able to do what the big kids are doing. It is often hard finding enough easy books for them to read, however. Here are two emergent reader books to print and color. Kids will love the illustrations, and the text is easy enough for beginners to manage.

Owen is just starting to read, and I made him these two books to practice reading. I enjoy drawing, so sometimes it’s fun to just make my own materials. I decided to fix up the drawings a little, scan, and make them available for you to print!

There are two books to print: Cats and Bugs. The text is almost all CVC words like cat, hat, bug, mad, etc. Kids will need to know short a, short e, and short u as well as the consonants b, c, d, f, g, h, j, m, r, s, t, and w. There are a couple of blends (sm- and gl-) to make the “story” more interesting. (Story is kind of a strong word, but they’re fun books!)

Kids will memorize the text to these books very quickly, and then it won’t really be reading anymore. One thing that you can do is to cover the picture with an index card and have them read the words without the picture first and then uncover the picture and let them see if they were right.

Owen loves his books! One afternoon he decided to make his own. He got out paper and cut it into pages and drew the pictures and stapled the whole thing together. Then he worked very hard on spelling the words. His story was almost identical to mine, but the process was so beneficial. I hope your kids enjoy the books as well!

To print:

Click on the book titles below. The file for each book will open, and you can print from there. Cut the pages apart and staple. Unfortunately, the pages lost some formatting between Microsoft Word and Adobe and they now have margins even though I had removed the margins. You may need to trim the pages to make them all the same size.

Cat Book

Bug Book

Have fun reading!

31 Comments

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  1. Lisa @ This Pilgrim Life Sep 3, 2014

    What a great idea! My son is almost at this point and I had never even thought to make a simple book for him. Thanks for making these available.

    Reply
    1. Eric Mngumi May 13, 2020

      Terrific. I am just started home-schooling my six year old boy. Hunting for all sorts of material. Thankyou for what you have done. We are not native speakers of English so this helps my son learn the language.

      Reply
  2. Jenae Sep 3, 2014

    Just printed them for Little Brother! :) Thanks Sarah!

    Reply
  3. Carol Sep 3, 2014

    Just printed them. My guy would love an "M" book and any others you make. Thank you!

    Reply
  4. Krystal Sep 3, 2014

    These are great!!! I can't wait to show them to my lil bean!!! I think if you made more it would be awesome!!! :) Thank you so much for taking the time to do them and share them! :)

    Reply
  5. Alissa Sep 4, 2014

    I just printed these for my daughter and she loved them! We would love more :)

    Reply
  6. Sarah Sep 4, 2014

    This is awesome! My son loves it when he can read a book, and it is so hard to find simple books like this!

    Reply
  7. Aubrey Sep 4, 2014

    These are very cool, I love that your son made his own! These remind me of Bob books that http://carrotsformichaelmas.com/ blogged about. I was able to check them out from the library.

    Reply
  8. Melanie Sep 5, 2014

    thanks for sharing! I'd definitely be interested in more printable beginning reader books for my son!

    Reply
  9. Avary Sep 7, 2014

    Let's have a brainstorming session :)

    Reply
  10. Maryellen Sep 9, 2014

    Such a great idea! Thanks for sharing the idea and the books for others to use!!!

    Reply
  11. Annette Sep 14, 2014

    These are amazing books, so simple yet so effective with the children. Thanks for this lovely resource, it would be lovely if you made more as unfortunately I certainly don't have this artistic talent :-)

    Reply
  12. Cynthia barboza Nov 6, 2014

    These are awesome! I'm starting to homeschooling my son. We can't afford to buy books and they're not available to check out at the library so printable it is!

    A train book would we nice :)

    Reply
  13. Jenn Jan 11, 2015

    I just printed these off for my oldest son. I think he'll have fun with them. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  14. Marianne Jan 18, 2015

    Not to take away from the books shown here, but wanted to share the word about twistynoodle.com. You can easily make simple beginning reader books there. I use it to individualize books for my preschool class.

    Reply
  15. kari Jan 21, 2015

    LOVE them! Would love more books and books with 3 or 4 words per page

    Reply
  16. Jenn Jan 27, 2015

    Thanks! My son is so excited for these! Please continue to post them!

    Reply
  17. Anneta Mar 17, 2015

    Thanks a lit for sharing. he books are GREAT!

    Reply
  18. Carrie May 31, 2015

    These are great! I have been tutoring an older child, who is very behind with reading. These are perfect.

    Reply
  19. shalini Aug 20, 2015

    Thank you so much for sharing these lovely books! loved this idea and planning to make more like these for my son! He loved the Glad Cat picture! Would love to see more such books from you Thanks again!!

    Reply
  20. Hanna Aug 24, 2015

    These are the first books my son actually wants to read! Thank you! I hope you will make more :)

    Reply
  21. meenakshi Aug 24, 2016

    love them.. thanks

    Reply
  22. kelly polizzi Sep 23, 2016

    Just wondering if you had done any more of these?

    Reply
    1. Sarah Sep 26, 2016

      At this point, I don't! I should make some more. I enjoyed making these, but they are time consuming to make.

      Reply
  23. Theresa May 11, 2017

    Thank you for these great books!
    This is perfect for my 4K kids that are ready to read!
    I'd be interested in more, if you make more!

    Reply
  24. hilda visser Jul 13, 2017

    It is a great idea!

    Reply
  25. rahini Dec 26, 2017

    Thank you......

    Reply
  26. purnima bedi Jan 2, 2020

    Thanks a lot for making it so easy. My daughter just loved reading and looking at the pictures.

    Reply
  27. Carmen Torres Apr 24, 2020

    Thank you very much for letting us to print this wonderful material for PK students. You are so sweet! I am a school librarian and in these moments we are trying to keep our students reading. These short books are excellent .

    Reply
  28. Fares J. Kajiru Sep 19, 2020

    Great book, this is very helpful most especially to all English non-native speakers. Thank you!

    Reply
  29. Jill Sep 24, 2020

    I just printed these for my Kindergarten daughter that doesn't read yet. But the other day her homeschool co-op teacher gave her SO much confidence in her reading ability by giving her a simple book like these. So after seeing that, I wanted love to continue that confidence. These are perfect...and rather hilarious. :) Thank you!

    Reply
  30. Roxan Jan 15, 2022

    Thank you very much love them

    Reply
  31. J Bond Nov 13, 2022

    Thank you, what a great resource

    Reply

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