Reading great children’s books:
The way children become good readers is to spend a lot of time reading. Kids need lots of time and space in their days to read, every day, at school and at home. And when they love their books, they will choose to spend more time reading. According to successful reading teachers, the only way to encourage a love of reading is to invite kids to choose their own books. Wise parents and teachers gather the best in children’s literature, make it readily available, and help kids make their selections if they need it. This enables them to form identities for themselves as readers. It’s important for every child to learn to “own” their favorite books, authors, genres, etc. Their personal selections are the basis for building a lifelong love of reading.
With this in mind, children need to have access to a wide variety of books, of all levels, not only at their current reading level, but also at lower levels and at higher levels. A child wants to be able to select books that interest him, not just ones that are at the specific level at which he is functioning at any given moment in time. So our challenge as parents and teachers is to provide that access to as many books as possible, with a good range of genres, formats, authors, topics and characters.
At Leveled Reader we believe that good children’s literature is really just good literature. We choose the books in our book sets by asking “Is this good literature?”, and “Will kids love this?” Take a look at the children’s books we have selected for young readers, and be prepared to find some new favorites.