'stanley and the bucket' is the fifth of five early reading books that feature dinosaurs. these books are intended to follow on from the initial word recognition games in the book 'learning to read is child's play. they are designed to enable the transition from single-word identification to reading in connected text using simple sentences. these books have been tried and tested with many children over the years. for some inexplicable reason, children love dinosaurs. research and experience demonstrate that very young children find it easier to distinguish between long words such as dinosaur names (like brontosaurus, stegosaurus, and triceratops) than words such as 'then' or 'there'. the books include large printed individual words of all the text at the back of the book that can be used in games to aid initial word identification. guidance is provided on the use of these printed words, there are also suggestions for fun activities for using these words provided in the book. there are also a few line drawings at the back of the book that children can colour in. the vocabulary in each book builds on the vocabulary in the previous books, adding just six new words that can be used to build simple sentences.