Books published by Crossbridge Books

This is Freddie is the first of a series of five books about Freddie, a fireman, and his friends. In this book, Freddie drives his fire engine through the countryside. He spots a cat up in a tree. The cat needs rescuing, so Freddie uses the ladder on his fire engine to get up into the tree and rescue the cat. Book two introduces Freddie''s friend Andy who drives an ambulance; book three introduces Freddie''s friend Dave who drives a digger; book four introduces Freddie''s friend Polina, a policewoman who drive a police car; and book five introduces Freddie''s'' friend Tom who drives a truck. These books can be used as ''read to'' books for preschool children or as ''read with'' books for beginner readers. There are full-colour illustrations throughout. The simple line drawings appeal to young children and the emotions of the characters are clearly depicted. The text uses alliteration to support phonic skills, and repetition to assist with word recognition or identification. The focus on vehicles, or transport, is intended to appeal especially to boys. The books are best read in sequence as they gradually introduce Freddie''s friends. Additionally, the books repeat vocabulary introduced in previous books to assist with long-term word identification. 

New research has demonstrated that a simple text manipulation can reduce the phenomenon known as migration (letters or words seeming to move) and lead to improved comprehension when reading narrative text for students with delayed-visual-disengagement dyslexia. In the research, when students read aloud from this adjusted text, compared to normal text, they made fewer mispronunciations, fewer omissions, fewer substitutions, and fewer migrations and thus scored higher on standardised tests of comprehension. Crossbridge Books is the first publisher to publish books using this adjusted text.Timothy Brum (Dyslexia-friendly edition) is published in this format. The content is suitable for young adult aged 14 upwards who struggle to read conventional text. Although fiction, the story is based on true accounts from children who have lived on the streets of English cities in this century. Timothy's parents lost him in the city of Birmingham when he was just three years old. He was then lost in the computer system for tracking children who have been found. The care system then lost him again when he ran away from the children's home. He was found by a homeless man living on the streets of London. His parents never gave up believing that one day they would find him.The narrative is uniquely written from the perspective of each of the characters as the tale unfolds.