The Cat in the Hat 

The Cat in the Hat is our third book of the NSW Premier Reading Challenge. It also happens to be one of the books that we’ve had in our library forever. It’s availability was the primary reason for me choosing to add this to our list.

The Cat in the Hat is one of the books on the PRC List. We have to read 30 books for the K – Year 3 challenge. Thankfully we’re not at the stage were our son has to read them himself otherwise that would take us forever. 

Book 3 of the PRC: The Cat in the Hat

The book is very different from the TV series that has been on recently. I had actually forgotten how naughty the Cat is and how much anxiety he creates.

In this book, it is the first time that the two children meet the Cat in the Hat and his friends, Thing 1 and Thing 2. The Cat in the Hat runs rampant through the house causing chaos much to the dismay of the fish.

It’s really repetitive and there are a lot of basic sight words that my son is beginning to recognise.

The Harper Collins version of Cat in the Hat

What is interesting about the Harper Collins published versions of Dr Seuss Books is that the have colour coded them. The green backed ones, like Cat in the Hat are for children who are just beginning to read.

According to the colour classification: “the rhyme, rhythm and repetition make them easier to read helping build confidence“.

I have found personally that they are also shorter and the concepts are less complicated.

The one difficulty with Cat in the Hat is that it is pretty long and is about 50 pages long but thankfully there aren’t many words on each page. Other than that, the only problem with the Harper Collins version  is that it seems it was only printed in three colours, red, blue and white. But from my memory, those may have been the only colours in the original book.

Our previous books

We have also read: Animal Babies of the Seas and Thelma the Unicorn. The latter being one of my absolute favourite books for kids!

♦

If you don’t know about the NSW Premier Reading Challenge, it is an initiative by the department of education to promote literacy and reading. It is not a competition!

You can find out more from the NSW PRC Website.