Summer's coming and it's time to get all the great books out. Parents, this is the time to start planning and preparing possible books that your child can read throughout the summer. It's also important to set a time for reading. If you and your child don't set aside some time for quiet reading, rather it be alone or together, you'll find that the summer will soon be over. If you look through my web-site, you'll find many books to give your child ideas of which books they would like to read.
For very young children, I suggest you check out some of the great new board books that have recently been published and packaged in sets. Here are two that I would recommend: "I Spy, 4 little books" by Jean Marzollo and photographs by Walter Wick. The second book is another set of 4 called "My Maisy Box", by Lucy Cousins. If you aren't spending time reading and looking at books with your toddler, even if it's a very short time, you're missing out on one of the most important times in their lives. This is the time for bonding, learning new vocabulary, lengthening attention span, beginning comprehension skills and last of all, but certainly not least, demonstrating to your little one that reading is important to you! Your young child will really love these books because the pictures are so visually bright and easy to see and so are the few words on each page. I like board books for this age because they can "own" the book and drag it or bend it without damaging it, so mom doesn't have to take over possession of it.
Now for the actual beginning readers. When school gets out, you will probably want to continue your child's progress with their reading throughout the long summer break. Here are some suggested book titles for you. However, I think the best thing for this age is to take them to the library and let them choose their own books. The problem with this is that emergent reader books are scattered throughout the picture book section. But, hopefully my list of books for this level will help. Beginning readers have multiple levels of reading abilities. My list of great beginning readers will begin with books with very few words and progress to chapter books:
The "Biscuit" series, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, and pictures by Pat Schories, has four books that emergent readers will love.
"Are You My Mother?" and "Go, Dog, Go", both by P.D. Eastman. Eastman has many great books of various beginning reading levels.
"Start to Read" series, published by
School Zone.
"Ready..Set..Read" by Joanna Cole.
"Hop on Pop" by Dr. Seuss
"Little Bear" books by Else Holmelund
Minarik
"Get Ready, Get Set, Read!" series
published by Barrons
"Frog and Toad" books by Arnold Lobel
"Little Critter" books by Mercer Mayer
"Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss
"Danny and the Dinosaur" by Syd Hoff
"Harry the Dirty Dog" by Gene Zion
Here is a list of chapter books for the more
assured readers who need more words and less pictures:
"Nate the Great" series by Margorie
Sharmat
"New Kids at the Polk Street School"
series by Patricia Reilly Giff
"Amelia Bedelia" books by Peggy Parish
"Junie B. Jones" series by Barbara Park
"Magic Tree House" series by Mary Pope
Osborne
"The Pee Wee Scouts" series by Judy
Delton
Adventures of the Bailey School Kids" by
Debbie Dadey and Marcia T Jones
Stay tuned to this section of the paper, because in
a couple of weeks, I will be listing my favorite fiction books for older
children for great summer reading!