Hen Has Ten
Hen Has Ten
by ReadRead · 5 min readOne, two, three… ten! A funny first counting book a child can read all by themself: short sound-out words, a runaway egg, a very muddy hen, and ten eggs to hatch with a tap.
Part of Family Shelf
Website price: $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year, 7 days free. Every book, for every child.
About Family ShelfYou can also subscribe on iPhone or iPad. Confirm the App Store price shown in the app; it may vary by region.Inside the book
Here is Hen. Hen has ten eggs, and she counts them: one, two, three… ten! Then she naps in the sun, and one egg quietly wobbles off and rolls away. Oh no! Hen can not see ten! Down, down, down the hill she runs. Is it in the mud? No. Hen is in the mud! Is it in the pen? No, the round pink thing is a sleeping pig! At last Hen finds her egg in a big pot by the barn and brings it home. Ten again. And then: pop! pop! pop! Ten little yellow chicks.
The new words in this book
A mother chicken. It comes up 10 times, and plump brown Hen is on the page every time: she counts, naps, runs, falls in the mud and gets her egg back.
The number 10. It comes up 8 times, and there are always ten eggs or ten chicks you can count, except on the page where one egg is missing and Hen “can not see ten”.
This is a Level 2 decodable reader: almost every word is either a short-vowel word a child can sound out (hen, ten, pen, mud, pot, pig, nap, sun, get, run) or one of the very first sight words (here, look, one, two, three, down, little, yellow). 98% of the running words are at that level; only “eggs” and “chicks” are a step above, and the picture shows them. The two new words, hen and ten, rhyme and differ only in the first letter, so the child has to look at the start of the word. The book also gives lots of counting practice to ten.
Questions to ask while you read
Pause after each spread and ask one question. There are no right answers; the point is to get your child talking.
- 1Who is this? How many eggs does Hen have?
- 2Count the eggs with Hen. Can you get to ten?
- 3What is Hen doing? What is the little egg doing?
- 4How many eggs can Hen see now? Where did one go?
- 5Which way is the egg rolling? Can Hen catch it?
- 6Is the egg in the mud? Who is in the mud?
- 7Is that round pink thing an egg? What is it?
- 8Where is the egg now? How will Hen get it?
- 9Tap each egg: pop! Count the chicks to ten.
- 10How many little chicks does Hen have now? Say goodnight to them!
How hard is this book?
Every short vowel (bed, sun) and the first sight words. A decodable book: 9 words in 10 can be sounded out at this phonics step.
- Questions × 2Is it in the pen?
- Commands × 3Run, Hen, run!
- Not / no × 3No! It is a pig!
All 33 words, most used first
ten 8 · can 6 · is 6 · it 6 · in 5 · the 4 · down 3 · has 3 · no 3 · pop 3 · a 2 · go 2 · look 2 · mud 2 · one 2 · run 2 · see 2 · chicks · egg · eggs · get · here · little · nap · not · oh · pen · pig · pot · sun · three · two · yellow
Names don’t count: the picture shows who it is.
Tips for parents
- First time: use Read to me and enjoy the jokes together. Then switch to I can read and let your child read it to you.
- Hen and ten rhyme. Cover the first letter: “en”. Now put h or t in front and read the two words.
- Count everything: eggs in the nest, chicks at sunset, fingers on two hands. Stop at ten!
- On the hatching page, say the number out loud with every tap until all ten chicks are out.