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Nan’s Hot Pan
Reading level 1 · First soundsAges 3–5

Nan’s Hot Pan

by ReadRead · 5 min read

Cat can fan the pan. Fan, fan, fan! A Level 1 book a child can read by themself: pan and fan differ by just one letter, every page is short, and the pancake hat is very funny.

10pop-up spreads
32things to tap
2new words
Words in this book
panfanplopstop
Peek inside

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Inside the book

Nan has a big black pan. She mixes a pancake in it, and the pan gets hot, hot, hot! Cat stands on the table and fans the pan with a little pink paper fan. Fan, fan, fan! Then Dog brings a big, big blue fan. Fan, fan, FAN! Oh no! The pancake flies up out of the pan… and plop! It lands right on Cat’s head. Cat has a hat! Nan and Dog can not stop laughing. In the evening they all sit down together. Yum, yum!

Plop! The pancake lands on Cat’s head like a hat, and Nan and Dog can not stop laughing in Nan’s Hot Pan.
Plop! The pancake lands on Cat’s head like a hat, and Nan and Dog can not stop laughing in Nan’s Hot Pan.
Nan holds up her big black pan in her cosy kitchen.
Nan holds up her big black pan in her cosy kitchen.
Fan, fan, fan! The pancake flies up out of the pan.
Fan, fan, fan! The pancake flies up out of the pan.
In the warm evening light, Nan, Cat and Dog sit down to eat the pancake.
In the warm evening light, Nan, Cat and Dog sit down to eat the pancake.

The new words in this book

pan

A flat metal pot with a long handle, for cooking. It comes up 6 times, and every time Nan’s big black frying pan is right there: held up high, filled with batter, sizzling hot, and suddenly empty when the pancake flies away.

fan

A folded paper you wave to make a little wind — and the word for waving it. It comes up 9 times: Cat’s little pink fan, Dog’s big blue fan, and the chant “Fan, fan, fan!” that the whole book waves along to.

Made for children who are just starting to sound out words. On our reading ladder this is a Level 1 book: a child who knows short-vowel words with a, i and o (pan, hot, mix) and ten first sight words (a, I, the, see, is, to, go, my, can, and) can read 92% of the words alone. The only harder words are “no”, “up”, “yum”, “plop” and “stop”. The two new words, pan and fan, change just one letter — p becomes f — so a child who can read one can read the other. Sentences are 2 to 6 words, and the chant “Fan, fan, fan!” comes back again and again.

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.

  1. 1What does Nan have? Is it a big pan or a little pan?
  2. 2What is Nan mixing? What goes in the pan?
  3. 3The pan is hot! How does Nan feel? Blow on it with me!
  4. 4What does Cat have? Wave your hand like a fan: fan, fan, fan!
  5. 5Is Dog’s fan big or little? Show me with your arms!
  6. 6What happens when Dog fans so hard?
  7. 7Where is the pancake now? Is it in the pan?
  8. 8Plop! Where did the pancake land? What does Cat look like?
  9. 9Tap Nan, Cat, Dog, the fans and the pan. Can you laugh like Nan?
  10. 10Who is sitting at the table? What do they say?

How hard is this book?

1
Reading level · Pre-KFirst sounds

Short a, i, o words (cat, sit, hop) and ten sight words. A decodable book: 9 words in 10 can be sounded out at this phonics step.

76words in all
26different words
4words per sentence
7longest sentence
More books at this level
Words a child can sound out, by phonics step
Step 1 · short a, i, o92%
Step 2 · all short vowels97%
Step 3 · blends100%
Step 4 · magic e, ee/ai100%
Step 5 · ar/or, oo/ou100%
Step 6 · longer words100%
Grammar in this book
  • Not / no × 3Oh no!
All 22 words, most used first

fan 9 · it 6 · pan 6 · a 5 · is 5 · hot 4 · big 3 · can 3 · has 3 · the 3 · and 2 · in 2 · not 2 · yum 2 · hat · mix · no · oh · plop · sit · stop · up

Names don’t count: the picture shows who it is.

Tips for parents

  • First time: use Read to me and laugh at the pancake hat together. It takes about two minutes.
  • Second time: switch to I can read and let your child sound out each word: p-a-n, pan. Almost every word works this way.
  • Play the one-letter game: cover the p in pan with your finger and write an f. Pan… fan! Try it with hat and cat too.
  • Every time the book says “Fan, fan, fan!”, wave a real fan or a piece of paper together.
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