The best easy reader children's books featuring dogs

If your early readers love dogs, this classic picture book is alive with dogs who can help them read easy yet important words like colors, numbers, and directions. Best of all, its lively action-packed illustrations provide context cues for even the most struggling reader. “Stop” and “go” are illustrated with car-driving dogs braking at traffic lights or racing through intersections. “Over” depicts a dog helicoptering above a tree; “under” depicts a dog resting in a hammock under it. Action-packed doggy adventures – dogs on scooters and skates, on unicycles and carriages - invite young readers to join on this doggy adventure, preparing them for the adventure of reading itself.

How Rocket Learned to Read is a charming easy-to-read picture book based on the joys of teaching and learning. In it, a little yellow bird teaches Rocket, the spotted dog, to read. Rocket begins by learning the alphabet. After that, he picks up little words like “Grrrrrr!” and “Whoosh!.” Little bird helps Rocket move on to words like “fall” and “red,” signaling a change in seasons. When winter comes, the little yellow bird must fly south. Although Rocket misses little bird, he keeps up with his schoolwork by practicing writing his “ABCs” in the snow. When the little bird returns in the spring, Rocket is now splashing in a word he can now spell: “mud.” Best of all he can spell the word “wag,” which is what he does with his tail when the little bird happily returns for the next season of school.

In Dig, Dogs, Dig early readers will delight in the rhymes and illustrations that are context clues to the words in the text. As the hard-working crew of dogs builds a new park, they dig with bulldozers and dump trucks and diggers and loaders. Along the way, they discover a dinosaur bone, which becomes the featured attraction of the new park.

This very easy early reader is a good choice for launching a child into reading. It follows Big Dog and Little Dog through their day as they eat, play, and – finally – sleep cuddled up together at night. This oh-so-simple story with its oh-so-simple illustrations provides a charming plot and a sense of reading mastery for the oh-so-very early young reader.

Biscuit is a curious little dog who loves the garden. He scampers about enjoying the butterflies and worms and especially the birds. But when Biscuit accidentally knocks over a bag of birdseed, his accident has a happy ending, for the seeds attract even more birds to the garden. Biscuit in the Garden offers simple words and a simple but engaging plot for young readers who are just beginning to read.