Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Reading

I had been experiencing a little confusion about how to get Sweet Pea to the next level with reading- reading more then a few sentences at a time and context clues, mainly.
It seems like most things with reading, though, that it just kind of happens. She's now happily working her way through the first Magic Treehouse book. I've read raving reviews of them, and scathing criticisms, but we decided to give them a shot. It's not a Great Book- but it's engaging and just enough of a stretch that it boots her out of her comfort zone and encourages her to move forward.
She still loves reading the Frog and Toad books and Amelia Bedelia books, but those are definitely on the level/ easy side for her. And she was pretty happy to remain there, so I'm relieved that she's edging forward now.
Any ideas for other books on a similar level to the Magic Treehouse books?

5 comments:

  1. Cam Jansen books! I love them, and they are better written than Magic Treehouse, IMO. Just above Cam Jansen would be books like The Boxcar Children, I think. I like series books because you can read aloud one of them, and when they want to know what happens next, you can point to the next one and say "Why don't you read it and tell me?" ;)

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  2. The suggestion I have is to look at sonlight.com for leveled readers. Or check out http://www.tanglewoodeducation.com/litandreading.htm . Both of them have leveled readers, and you can see the reviews too.

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  3. Did you find the www.lexile.com website helpful?

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  4. So cool that Sweet Pea is reading is on to her next level of reading! I have one set of 4 Magic Treehouse Books lined up for when Satori gets to that point, maybe later this spring or by summer. I have heard good things about the Cam Jansen books too.

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  5. Not sure if I mentioned this on Christmas, but the other thing the lexile is nice for is making sure that the content is age appropriate. For example, Jessica's lexile in Nov. at conferences as 950-1050. There are many books in that lexile that are at her reading level, but that are written for the maturity of middle and high school students, not 4th graders. It's easier to find other genre's such as non-fiction, poetry, etc. You may find the same to be true for Sweat Pea in some cases. Jessica did enjoy the Cam Jensen's too.

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