Friend or Fiend? by Judy Blume- The Best First Chapter Book

Friend or Fiend? by Judy Blume-
If you where looking for a great first chapter book for your child, this is the one. The stories are about a brother and sister, the Pain and the Great One. Unlike many other first chapter books, in which kids are badly behaved, Blume’s characters are just adorable, funny, and interesting. You will enjoy reading these chapters as much as your child.
Happy Reading!

Hop On Pop- Dr. Seuss

Hop on Pop -by Dr. Seuss is one o the best books for early readers. First graders tirelessly reread this book with everlasting enthusiasm. Like other Dr. Seuss books, “Hop on Pop” is full of funny rhymes and interesting illustrations. Words are easy enough to for an early reader and text is full of high frequency words, which are great for kids to practice.

Happy Reading!

Tacky the Penguin – Helen Lester- Something for Laughs

Tacky the Penguin- by Helen Lester- Something To Make Kids Laugh

Tacky is an odd bird. He does not blend in with other penguins. He has his own style, his own way of greeting and marching and splashing… And when he sings, others wish that he’d stop, but one day when the hunters come to hunt for penguins, Tacky saves the day. You’ll have to find out how.. This is a perfect story for 4-8 years olds. They will laugh and ask for a reread.

Happy Reading!

Wemberly Worried- Kevin Henkes- Something for the kids who worry

Wemberly Worried – by Kevin Henkes

Wemberly worries about everything, little things, big things, and things in between. She worries all day and all night long about all kinds of things, like, the crack in the wall, the radiator noise, her doll, having no friends, etc. Wemberly worries very much, but at the end she seems to become better able to manage her worries. To find out about the end, you’ll have to read the story. The kids will like it, and it will definitely make them laugh. Being worried and fearsome is a normal part of childhood. I found that this story really hits home with second grade students. Second graders are constant worriers. They are kind of like Wemberly . This is also a perfect story for a child who is about to go into a new school or start a new grade. 

Hope you enjoy it!

Reading Fluency K-2

Once children know their letters and can read simple CVC words, such as cat, dog, hat, they are ready to take a next step. But this next step can cause frustration in both children and parents.

Students come out of kindergarten reading letter by letter. And if they are not taught word families, they continue to read letter by letter even when words get bigger. This impedes decoding, fluency, and comprehension, and causes great stress.

To address this, students should be taught word families, as I noted in one of my previous posts. Word family study is often referred as “chunking”. Students learn to “chunk words” by learning rhyme patterns/word families. For example…

-ash

dash

smash

rash

trash

Hooked on Phonics books are great for learning and teaching word families and chunking. Hooked on Phonics books progress in difficulty and each story reviews words/word families prior to child’s reading. As with other phonics material, stories don’t offer much of a story line, but they are good practice of word families/chunking.

Fancy Nancy- Something for Girls- Connor and Glasser

Fancy Nancy- by O’Connor and Glasser

Fancy Nancy is glamorous. Fancy Nancy not only makes everything and everyone fancy, but she also tries to make everything sound fancy by using French words. And French does make everything sound fancier. In this book Nancy dresses her whole family fancy and they go out for dinner. This book is a great vocabulary builder. And the illustrator presents this book in such beautiful details that will keep every girl wanting to look as fancy as Fancy Nancy.

Happy Reading!

Learn to Read – Phonemic Awareness

If a child is to learn how to read, he/she must have phonemic awareness.  This is not the same as phonics. Phonics teaches children the relationship between letters and sounds. So a child can recognize a letter and say its sound. Phonemic awareness is different. 

Phonemic awareness does not involve print/text. 

It is your child’s ability to manipulate sounds in words. 

Phonemic awareness is easy to teach. Make it fun through play!

Say, “Tell me what is a first sound in a word “cat”" Now what is the end sound in “cat”? What do you hear in the middle of “c” and “t”?

Great Sites for Kids

Every girl loves American Girl, have fun at this site

http://www.americangirl.com/fun.html

 Scholastic is an authority for all things about reading. Great site, full of info on all kids of topics.

http://www.scholastic.com/kids/stacks/books/

 Berenstain Bears

http://www.berenstainbears.com/

For kids in 3rd-8th grade

http://www.bookwink.com/

 For all the little kids and parents who love Little Critter tales

http://www.littlecritter.com

http://www.readingrockets.org/