In a French Immersion class, there is always a constant struggle to have materials to read that are at the right level for the learning in your class. Then, the level of the students themselves will change from year to year. Some years you have slow readers and some years you have fast readers. Often this hinges on the amount of French they heard before coming to your class.

Bonbon Books has three main goals: 1. To practice thematic and timely vocabulary, typically through a monthly list of targeted words. 2. To reinforce vocabulary related to SOR or the specific sounds taught in the French Immersion Language program. 3. To maintain active learning by providing comprehension questions with audio prompts, supporting students who are not yet readers but still need vocabulary review and opportunities to develop higher-order thinking skills.

The goal is to stay close to decodable, but to also grow core vocabulary and to have reading material that uses that core vocabulary. (which makes for some pretty silly stories) In the pictures below, you will see that stories are tagged for month, season or sound. Toggle buttons by each book allow the teacher to pick which books are shared with their class.

The teacher dashboard is a place to choose books for your class. There is also a place for you to create your own materials for your class.

Monitor progress and watch for difficulties on the class dashboard. Here you will be able to see what is being done during independent work time.

From the student view, books open on the screen. There is an option to “hear” the text as well as an image for each page. At the end of each book are three comprehension questions. Again, there is an option to “hear” the questions and the answers. The students are awarded “bonbons” for their right answers. The application will track the number of bonbons collected by each student, and more importantly as a class! Recent quiz activity can be printed and added to student files as evidence of work at independent levels.

At the time of writing, Bonbon books has 70 stories that are already published in the global library. (More are waiting to be finished.) All of the stories are at the beginner level. Their purpose is to build vocabulary either for sound-based support (ie. words that have the sound “d”) or vocabulary common to special days, months, or seasons.

Let me know what you think! Are their any vocabulary lists that I should be adding to the collection! Science or Social studies vocabulary? I am hoping to add more calendar days as the year progresses, but would appreciate knowing what is critical for you!

Happy reading!