The EARLYREAD series contains both original stories and traditional favourites, as well as some cultural readers, graded over five levels. Features of all readers are: • beautiful illustrations, which not only encourage reading but actively help children to understand the story • picture dictionaries, for active vocabulary work • fun activities and games, often for more than one participant, which practise vocabulary and structures in the story. • a recording of the whole text, either on an accompanying CD or downloadable at no charge from the Black Cat website. All the readers can be easily dramatised. The most recent titles are accompanied by playscripts which can also be downloaded free from the Black Cat website.