A Handful of Dogs: With Four Phonics Stories

A Handful of Dogs is the fifth book in the “Meg and Greg” series. Like the other titles in this decodable book series, each of the four stories includes a phonics focus for striving readers with features to assist children with dyslexia or other language-based learning difficulties to foster their success in reading .

In A Handful of Dogs, 10-year-old friends Meg and Greg find themselves faced with a variety of exciting and, at times, funny problems. The four story format with five chapters in each story provides a flow to the reading and adds interest and suspense. The black and white labeled comic-style illustrations by Elisa Gutiérrez are engaging and add humour to each story.

The opening story, “A Handful of Dogs”, finds Meg and Greg in charge of the Dog Dash for the school Fall Festival. A heavy rain storm with wind gusts that blow the tent into a pond followed by thunder which frightens the dogs make this an exciting adventure for the two friends. The “Amazing Quest” includes a school field trip filled with code breaking challenges. In “Grated, Chopped, Crushed”, the duo design a science fair project which involves creating a maze for hamsters, and in “Extreme Pumpkin Patching”, Meg and Greg have their hands full taking care of their two kindergarten buddies on a field trip to a pumpkin patch.

This fifth book in the series expands on the phonics and reading skills introduced in books one to four and gradually adds to the amount of text for the reader. The “Meg and Greg” books are designed for shared reading between a child and an adult or proficient reading buddy. There is a unique format to the appearance of each double page spread. In the top corner of each page, there is picture of a person; a smaller picture on the right hand side. This indicates that this page will be read by the child and the left hand side with the larger picture will be read by the adult. The left hand pages or the adult/ buddy pages contain the narrative text with some illustrations. The text includes longer sentences, a wider vocabulary, and the words in bold type introduce different prefixes and suffixes and the spelling rules associated with adding them to base words. The right hand pages are the kid pages and resemble a graphic novel format. On these pages, the text is at a lower reading level with a phonogram focus, and the picture to text relationship adds detail to assist the reader. Between each story is a double page spread with puzzles or activities based on the reading skills highlighted in the story.

Shared reading is a special experience for all emergent readers. Co-authors Elspeth Rae and Rowena Rae incorporate a number of reading features in this learning experience geared to striving readers with language-based learning challenges. The clear, well-spaced font and the shaded paper on the right hand side pages make the reading more accessible to a dyslexic reader. The length of each story is manageable and has a good flow and pace. Even though the format of the “Meg and Greg” series is designed as a decodable book, the humour, the graphics and the text features combined with the chapter book format will appeal to all children in grades 2 to 4. Once the format is explained to the child and proficient reading partner, A Handful of Dogs will provide a fun, engaging reading adventure for both.