Green Eggs and Ham

[JTsMom]

More good ones here:
http://satorismiles.com/resources/books/fiar-list/

A couple of my personal favorites from both lists are Library Lion, Night of the Moonjellies, Owl Moon, The Kissing Hand, Tikki Tikki Tembo, Strega Nona, Snow and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.

For kids that are a little more advanced, or for your more average 1st grader, I'm a big fan of the Henry and Mudge series and the Frog and Toad books.

[arivecchi]

Definitely a broad spectrum for beginning reading. Also, just because a child begins to read at an earlier age does not indicate that child is necessarily advanced in general or will be as s/he ages.

I agree.

The ability to read early seems about as significant as the ability to PT early. Kids eventually get the hang of it......what's the big rush?

[Green_Tea]

Thank you. We love Jon Scieszka (Trucktown Series). We met him at our local bookstore. He was the best. I love how he has a commitment to write for boys.

ETA:

What picture books for 5 year olds? DS1 is 5.5 and in k.

Finally, I thought I would add that I think the focus in k should be more on number fluency that reading. So many people in this country develop a math phobia, and if we can hit it hard in k, maybe we can combat that early. It is much easier to teach an older child to read (when they are developmentally ready) than an older child comfort with numbers.

Kindra, I'll try to remember to post some recs for younger picture books tomorrow. I am worn out after tonight's class and my brain is mushy!

(Also - I TOTALLY agree with you about math! I think that we have largely thrown math under the bus to develop early readers, and it's not a good thing at all. I am actually taking extra elective math and science classes in my grad program in the hopes of being a teacher that inspires her students to be mathematicians!)

[crl]

ol. I'm just not sure that using a reading leveling tool by Scholastic is the best way to draw any conclusions, particularly if the school doesn't use Scholastic's system.

I may be completely wrong as I am definitely not a reading expert, but I think the reading leveling tool used by Scholastic is the Lexile score. And I don't think that is a tool developed by Scholastic. I think it is a commonly used tool to determine the reading level of books.

Catherine

[GvilleGirl]

Catherine,
You are correct. The Scholastic site gives the level in a couple of different ways. Lexile (300L), DRA (16-18), Guided Reading (J - which is Fountas and Pinnell). All of these different systems all equate to about 2nd grade level.