The Tessy and Tab Reading Club

By Charlana Albios

Preschoolers love to receive mail. Parents want to get their preschooler excited about reading. Put these two things together and you have “The Tessy and Tab Reading Club.”

 

Blue Lake Children’s Publishing, the Portland-based company behind this bi-monthly magazine for preschoolers, provides an excellent source to get your preschooler excited about reading and gives parents the tools necessary to help develop early literacy skills.

Every two weeks, your preschooler will receive a copy of “The Tessy and Tab Reading Club” magazine addressed to them in the mail. They will quickly become familiar with the recurring characters of Tessy the duck and Tab the kangaroo that are featured in each issue. Tessy and Tab’s real-life adventures are experiences to which your preschooler can relate – a day at the zoo, bath time, an airplane trip, etc. Before long, your preschooler will see Tessy and Tab as old friends who come to visit twice a month.

 

The colorful illustrations are fun and easy to interpret and the text is simple. After you read the magazine to your preschooler just once, there’s a good chance that they will be able to “read” it back to you.

The magazine is ad-free and in picture book format; it is not the typical magazine that you find on newsstands. When each issue is mailed to your preschooler, you will receive a “Grown-up Guide” by email that includes information about the current issue and tips on how you can use it to build your preschooler’s reading skills.

For gift givers, there is more to this subscription than just footing the bill. Your personalized message is printed on every label of the 24 issues and you receive the “Grown-up Guide” by email every month to help you stay involved.

 

There are letter and number learning activities in every issue of the magazine.

 

The website is a great resource for learning more about early literacy skills for ages 2-5.

Website: www.tessyandtab.com