Have you read Joy Cowley’s   Little Rabbit   series yet? Leveled from C-D, this all-new set from the   Joy Cowley Early Birds  series will bring joy and laughter into your early childhood classroom.

Apart from the charming humor and adorable illustrations, the   Little Rabbit   series offers a multitude of opportunities for your students to improve literacy skills. The main character’s name, Little Rabbit, already includes two examples of double consonants--"tt" and "bb"! By examining the book   Carrots ,   your students can familiarize themselves with double consonants, an essential phonic skill.

Title page:

• Examine the title.   What do you notice about the spelling of this word? Are there any letters that are repeated in the word?
• Introduce the term   double consonants —when two of the same consonants appear together in succession.

 P. 2:

• What are the double consonant words on this page?   (Rabbit, chopped, carrot.)
• Three   is not a double consonant because “e” is a vowel. This exercise will serve as an effective way to test your students’ confidence in distinguishing consonants from vowels.

P. 5:

• What is the new double consonant word introduced on this page?   (All.)

P. 6:

• What are the new double consonant words introduced on this page?   (Squirrel, will.)

P. 8:

• Explain that   Dad   is not a double consonant word. While it contains two “d”s in the word, they are separated by an “a” and thus do not appear right next to each other.

After reading: 

• List all the different consonants that appear doubled in this book:   r, t, b, l,   and   p . Brainstorm with the class to think of other words that contain these double letter consonants (pa rr ot, ta tt le, bu bb le, gori ll a, ha pp y).
• Can other consonants in the alphabet also be doubled?   Have your students go on a double consonant hunt through the other books in your classroom library. The Little Rabbit series also includes the double consonan words   biggest   and   off . “S” as in   miss , “m” as in   summer , “d” as in   shudder,   and “n” as in   runner   also appear as double consonants in English.

  Double consonants can challenge early spellers, but they are actually very common in our daily language . (For reference, this blog post uses 31 different instances of double consonants!) Gaining familiarity through reading will help your students recognize words that require double consonants. Happy reading with Little Rabbit!

Browse all of the Little Rabbit titles   at our website here . Click the image below to download a informational sheet about   Joy Cowley Early Birds , which includes the book featured in this article.