Easy Children's Readers

As the school year progresses, has your young child been traveling down the exciting, but sometimes frustrating road to reading?  In addition to the Fontas & Pinnell Guided Reading system used by the Lake Forest Public Schools, there are many excellent progressive phonics and easy reader series for newly emergent readers.  You and your child might wish to try some of these popular books, many written by quality children’s authors with well known characters :

 Bob Books   These small, color coded boxed sets are an ideal starting point for children who are sounding out words and creating simple sentences.  Set One is also available with a read along disc to add auditory support. 

Child’s World has reissued a phonics set  with updated illustrations covering the entire alphabet of hard and soft consonants and vowels, from Amy’s Race  to Zack’s Zippers.

Once your new reader is comfortable with  word recognition and comprehension there are progressive reader sets that combine high interest subjects with increasing levels of difficulty:

 Step into Reading  has 5 levels, starting at Preschool Ready to Read.  Popular licensed characters from Disney and Barbie and some nonfiction.

Star Wars easy readers

 DK Readers offers 4 levels from Beginning to Read (simple sentences with new word repetition).  This series is popular with boys as they read about Star Wars, Lego characters, Pokemon, and various superheroes.

The Cat in the Hat

I Can Read (also known as Beginner Books) is the home of the classics.  Ready for The Cat in the Hat, Frog and Toad, or Danny and the Dinosaur?  A wide array of quality readers at several different levels.  Sometimes a child just enjoys practicing and exploring his new found skills without the strict hierarchy of levels.

 When your reader progresses from reading single sentences to short easy chapters, look for series written with a controlled vocabulary by popular children’s authors expressly for this level of comprehension. Cynthia Rylant has several : Henry and Mudge,  Mr. Putter & Tabby, and Poppleton.  The easy reader section is also where you will find the humorous Amelia Bedelia and detective Nate the Great.

     

 Lately, some easy versions  have introduced popular fiction series to the emerging capable reader:  The Boxcar Children, Amber Brown, and Black Beauty.

We group our readers by author, not series, so a certain series level may be found throughout the collection.