Buy Set 1

Fin Tales

Ages 4–7

Beginner books for first-time readers

Stories kids love, written for how children learn to read. Every word on every page is one your child can sound out.

Read the first book free See the science ↓built on the science of reading!
The covers of three Fin Tales from Set 1: Fin, A Mat and We Sit

Inside the Method

See the science ↓
  • Phonics, step by stepLetter sounds, in a set order.
  • Small steps, never a leapOne new sound at a time.
  • Repetition, by designEvery new word, again and again.
  • Sentences that can’t be guessedYour child reads every word.

Meet the gang

Cute characters. Serious instruction.

The science of first-time reading

A phonics-based approach. Every choice in these books follows what decades of reading research have found works best for beginning readers.

Phonics, step by step1,2

Your child learns the sounds letters make, in a set order, and how to blend them into words. Phonics is the approach reading research backs most strongly.

Small steps, never a leap3,4

New sounds arrive slowly, one at a time, and every book builds on the one before it.

Repetition, by design5,6,7

Repetition is built into every book. Each new word comes up again and again in the book that teaches it, then keeps returning in later books, until your child reads it at a glance.

Sentences that can’t be guessed9

The sentences are written so they can’t be predicted from the picture or memorized from the page before. Your child has to read every word.

Set 1 · The reading path

The first twenty books

Thoughtful sequencing. Each book teaches a little more.3,4

  1. Book 1Fin
  2. Book 2Is It Fin?
  3. Book 3In It!
  4. Book 4Sit, Fin!
  5. Book 5Tif
  6. Book 6Fan It!
  7. Book 7Lass
  8. Book 8I Fit!
  9. Book 9Tam
  10. Book 10Toss It!
  11. Book 11A Mat
  12. Book 12I See It!
  13. Book 13This Is Fin
  14. Book 14Fan Me!
  15. Book 15Tam Did It!
  16. Book 16Tam Hid!
  17. Book 17We Win!
  18. Book 18Meet Mel
  19. Book 19We Sit
  20. Book 20Will Lass Fit?

Get all twenty: Set 1

Tips for grown-ups

You don’t need to be a teacher: children taught at home by a parent get a real head start.8

  • “Look at the letters.”

    Point under every word

    It keeps their eyes on the letters, not the pictures.9,11

  • “Fffiiinnn… Fin!”

    Stretch it, then say it fast

    Hold each sound into the next with no gaps (fffiiinnn), then say it quickly: Fin.12

  • “Try again.”

    Point out mistakes right away, kindly

    Tap under the word and let them have another go.4

  • “Let’s read it one more time.”

    Read it twice

    It’s smoother the second time,1 and the words stick.6

  • “You sounded out every word!”

    Praise, and stop while it’s fun

    Name what they did well.10 Ten minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday.7

  • “You earned a sticker!”

    Add a sticker after every read

    Each book has a sticker page, with a spot for every read.

Make the letter and word cards

Every book starts with a two-minute warm-up on index cards: its new letters and words, then a few old ones. Set 1 uses 50 cards, numbered in the order the books teach them. Make them at home in an evening, or order the printed set.

See all 50 cards
The cover of Book 1, Fin

Read the first book free

Book 1 starts with just three words: it, is and Fin.

Read Book One
A pencil sketch of Fin in round glasses, reading a picture book

How it all began

About the company

My mom was an elementary school teacher with a passion for teaching kids to read. Year after year, she saw what worked in her classroom, and what didn’t. She taught my sister and me to read when we were four.

She used the I See Sam books, developed by education researchers at SWRL, a federally funded lab in Southern California. They tested the program in kindergarten classrooms, improved it based on the results, and by the mid‑1970s it was in more than 2,000 schools. Why did it work? It taught one new sound at a time, and every step built on the one before.

I went on to study at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and learned the science of reading – concepts like scaffolding, encoding, and consolidation – so you don’t have to. All of these learning concepts inform the Fin Tales series. When I became a dad, I taught my own two kids the same way, starting at age four. Every night before bed, we’d curl up and read together for ten minutes. It wasn’t always easy, but by the time they were five, both were reading at a first-grade level. By the time they were six, they were reading at a third-grade level.

I started The Reading Company so other families can have that same start. We teach children to read the way that works best, and show parents exactly how to help. Fin Tales is how we do it: the same step-by-step approach, with new stories, new friends, and art that makes kids want to turn the page.

Michael Duca, Founder

The research behind the method

  1. National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
  2. Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Stahl, S. A., & Willows, D. M. (2001). Systematic phonics instruction helps students learn to read. Review of Educational Research, 71(3), 393–447.
  3. Cheatham, J. P., & Allor, J. H. (2012). The influence of decodability in early reading text on reading achievement: A review of the evidence. Reading and Writing, 25(9), 2223–2246.
  4. Foorman, B., et al. (2016). Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (NCEE 2016-4008). Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
  5. Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55(2), 151–218.
  6. Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21.
  7. Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380.
  8. Sénéchal, M., & LeFevre, J.-A. (2002). Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: A five-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 73(2), 445–460.
  9. Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51.
  10. Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112.
  11. Justice, L. M., Pullen, P. C., & Pence, K. L. (2008). Influence of verbal and nonverbal references to print on preschoolers’ visual attention to print during storybook reading. Developmental Psychology, 44(3), 855–866.
  12. Gonzalez-Frey, S. M., & Ehri, L. C. (2021). Connected phonation is more effective than segmented phonation for teaching beginning readers to decode unfamiliar words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 25(3), 272–285.