Traffic Jam Level 3-5

In Traffic Jam, readers follow a young boy who excitedly identifies various vehicles caught in a traffic jam while talking to his mum. This simple, engaging story uses high-frequency words and phonics patterns like œt, œb, and œc to support early reading development. The book introduces compound words such as œmotorcycle and focuses on word families with onsets and rimes like œc/an and œc/ar. Its repetitive and predictable text structure helps young learners build confidence and fluency. Alongside literacy skills, the story's theme introduces concepts related to leisure and recreation, and incorporates early maths learning through counting and categorising vehicles. The bright, clear illustrations make it accessible and fun for emerging readers.

Educational Benefits:

• Reinforces recognition of high-frequency words in context
• Supports phonemic awareness through initial sounds and word families
• Encourages comprehension via prediction and context cues
• Introduces categorisation skills linked to maths concepts

Classroom Ideas:

• Create vehicle sorting activities based on types or colours
• Use the text as a writing model for simple sentences about vehicles
• Make word family charts with related onset and rime combinations
• Count and graph the different vehicles seen in the story

Information:

• Ages: 5-7 years
• Reading Level: 3-5 (Red)
• Book dimensions: 14.5 cm x 16.5 cm; 16 pages