Nan Has a Van, has been written for beginning readers. It contains two mini-stories created with mostly short a vowel, 'an' word family, CVC (consonant/vowel/consonant) words such as Nan, can and pan. Created by a teacher with three decades of experience helping children learn to read, this second book in the First Books series uses basic words in repetition and simple non-distracting illustrations to help young readers create meaning from text.
In the minimalist stories in this book, Nan, Jan, and Dan interact in several situations involving a can, a pan, a van, and a fan. The emphasis is on repetitive words and letter sounds that improve sight word vocabulary and, hence, reading confidence. After multiple read-throughs with an adult or older sibling, young readers will be able to take the reading reins themselves and experience reading success.
With mostly two- and three-letter words that can be sounded out, Nat has a Van is a step towards the gradual addition of more letter sounds and word families. Word family knowledge opens up an ever-increasing vocabulary with the later incorporation of more complex digraphs and letter blends, and compound words.
Nan has a Van contains two short stories over its 32 pages. The stories are created using only nine 'an' words (can, Dan, fan, Jan, man, Nan, pan, ran, van and 'special words' such as a, and, are, by, did, end, has, in, is, not, off, went, with, and yum. Special words are high-frequency words that appear numerous times in most texts and hence provide a backbone for young readers.
