What do you use for readers when not following boxed curriculum?

[amselby81]

DD is starting to read, and I'm not sure what to do for readers since we do not do a boxed curriculum. We have access to some decent libraries, so I'm sure I wouldn't even need to buy anything, but I wouldn't know which books would be best, and which order to go in, etc. I could buy the sonlight books, but I'm not interested in their LA curriculum. W/o buying the curriculum, I wouldn't know what order the books go in.

 

So what do you do if you do not use a boxed curriculum?

[Rosie_0801]

I bought the 'I See Sam' readers and pair that with ElizabethB's speller lessons, but using a British speller instead of Websters. Apparently the first 52 books can be found online for free and your children's librarian should be able to answer your questions about whatever early readers they stock.

 

Rosie

[boscopup]

We have some Bob books and downloaded several I See Sam books (my kids like these better). Once we're ready for ”real books”, I'll just go to the early reader section of the library. Unfortunately, they do tend to have a lot of large words thrown in.

 

There are also Primers available on a Google Books. McGuffey, Free & Treadwell, and some others.

 

For now, my son is mostly reading from his curriculum (Dancing Bears), but I sometimes have him read some easy Dr. Seuss to me (the parts I know he knows). He's not ready to read library books yet.

[ByGrace3]

You can buy the Sonlight readers with the schedule only. The schedule is around $7 I think. That is what we do.

[a27mom]

We like bob books.

[Mergath]

We have the first three levels of the Bob books that dd reads, and she likes them for the most part, though some of the books in level one are mind numbingly-dull, even for a four-year-old. Some days I just make up sentences on the white board for her to read. More Starfall has a lot of online readers now, too.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I love the readers by Arnold Lobel- Frog and Toad series, as well as several stand-alones. These are sold as part of the I Can Read level 2 books. These are charming, and often laugh-out-loud funny for my son and I.

[Ellie]

I never used vocabulary-controlled basal readers. The library is full of books with much richer vocabulary and interesting plots than you'll find in readers. :-)

[Elizabeth in MN]

I had to skip Bob Readers because my dd was able to guess the story from the picture. Once we were done with OPGTR we would go to the library. Our library has the first readers in one book case, down at a child's level. I'd just let her pick books. It was a little overwhelming for her to choose one, at first, but eventually she found ones she liked. We liked Little Bear and the Frog and Toad books.

[ondreeuh]

Dr. Seuss is good, as well as the modern version: the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems. They don't go in any order. Seuss uses word faimilies, and Willems's uses more sight words.

 

We like Bob books. Nora Gaynos readers a much more predictable (only a couple of new words on each page). We are almost done with set 4 of Bob books, and we typically read 2-3 a day, and when we retire ones as they are mastered we add in the next one. I like the order a lot.

 

I also have Sonlight's I Can Read books, but they don't have the same satisfaction as individual little books, in my opinion.

[Holly]

We used the free-online McGuffey readers for years before I finally purchased a used set. I'm still using them with my 5th grader, so it's a pretty good investment.

 

Heart of Dakota has a nice emerging reader program...I bet your library has most of the selections. We add many of these in with the McGuffey readers for variety.

[melbotoast]

Try progressivephonics.com DS loved the silly little stories. We also used a lot of library books. It is much more fun to read a book when you pick it out yourself.

[Mrs Twain]

These are the series I checked out from the library, in order:

 

Dr. Seuss

Frog and Toad

Little Bear

Dragon such as "A Friend for Dragon"

Mr. Putter and Tabby

Henry and Mudge

Nate the Great

 

After that, I used reading lists from SonLight and VP to pick out books on a 1st-2nd grade reading level, and then advanced to higher levels as my child was ready. If the child can read most of the words, then the book level is too low. If the child needs help pronouncing more than 2-3 words on a page, then the book is too difficult. That is how I find books for my kids to read aloud to me which challenge them to improve their reading levels but which are not too frustrating.

 

I also used McGuffy and Treadwell Readers.

[Hunter]

McGuffey ECLECTIC readers, NOT the old tan version. CBD sells audio books to go along with the series, that we really like here. Many of my students struggle with pronunciation due to not having much exposure to "proper" spoken English if there is such a thing.

 

The Eclectic series is LEVELS not grades. Book 4 is about grades 7-8.

 

McGuffeys Eclectic is not only a phonics based series, but it is based on a word list you can get from DollarHomeschool. You can TEACH each word and be assured that the student will never encounter a word in the reading that they have not been previously taught. There are no assumptions that a student will INFER how to read a word from having been taught similar ones.

 

I used this series for copywork exclusively until I started using the copywork in How to Tutor. Now I let students read ahead of their handwriting ability, in the McGuffey's, and focus more in their ability to read aloud.

[Julie Smith]

First we read all the books about superhereos. I would read the hard words, and Youngest the easy words.

 

When those got used up we did the same with books about Lego. Now we are onto Splat the Cat books.

[Farrar]

We just read piles and piles of books of all sorts. Leveled readers, Dr. Seuss, Mo Willems, Arnold Lobel, BOB books, Nora Gaydos books... I mostly used the library and would also buy piles and piles of them from the thrift store. I used to just go through them all and open each one up and see if the amount of text on the page and the first few words I saw looked right or wrong. It was a pretty fast process.

 

I found the method used by Progressive Phonics to be by far the most useful thing. I would read the words that they didn't know how to sound out yet and they would read the ones they could. I used to just point as we went. Then, later on, I would read a page and they would read a page, back and forth, to build up fluency.

[Roxy Roller]

You can buy the Sonlight readers with the schedule only. The schedule is around $7 I think. That is what we do.

 

:iagree:

We use the Sonlight Readers with the schedule, for our reading progression. I really prefer to use 'real' books, and the Sonlight lists are done so well that the progression is pretty seamless.

[ScoutTN]

Bob books then Frog and Toad and other like it.

[Cassy]

We started out with these:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Complete-Collection-Phonics-Flashcard/dp/0192728458/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1352412407&sr=8-4&keywords=oxford+reading+tree+pack

 

and then slowly worked our way through the Oxford Reading Tree stages until reaching Stage 10, after which they were able to tackle most simple chapter books.

[Lori D.]

Enjoy lots of library books! Look for the "phonics" readers, and the "step 1" level of stepped reader series. Here are some publisher series:

- Step Into Reading

- Hello Reader

- All Aboard Readers

- Puffin Easy to Read

- DK Readers

- Green Light Readers

 

 

If you like vintage books, check out old-fashioned readers from:

- Pathway Reading

- Ginn Basic Readers (out of print, but you can find these on Amazon used, ebay, etc.)

* Primers: the 3 first readers: "My Little (red; green; blue) Story Book"; and, Come With Us (enrichment)

* 1st Grade: "The Little White House"; "On Cherry Street"; enrichment: "Under the Apple Tree"; "Open the Gate"

 

 

For VERY early phonics readers:

- BOB books

- Abeka Little Owl Books

- Scholastic First Little Readers

- Modern Curriculum Press Practice Readers

 

 

Also, you can glean lots of title ideas from booklists from Sonlight and other curriculum or websites, and from others on this website.

 

 

And here are some ideas for specific book titles to look for at the library:

 

DR. SUESS

- The Foot Book

- Hop on Pop

- Ten Apples Up On Top

- I Can Read With My Eyes Shut

- Wacky Wednesday

- The Cat in the Hat

- Dr. Seuss's ABC

- Green Eggs and Ham

- Thinks You Can Think

- Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You

 

 

P.D. EASTMAN

- Go Dog Go

- Fish Out of Water

- Snow

- Summer

- Are You My Mother

 

 

Others:

- What Spot? (Bonsall)

- A Fly Went By (McClintock)

- PJ Funnybunny books (Sadler)

- A Big Ball of String (Holland)

- Little Black, A Pony (Schucker)

- The Big Jump (Elkin)

- The King, The Mice and the Cheese (Gurney)

- The Whales Go By (Galdone)

- That Stump Must Go (Berenstain) -- Berenstain Bears Beginner Books

 

 

Enjoy your reading adventures! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[MeaganS]

We use OPGTR, and I've made my own readers from the passages in it. We also use BOB books, Progressive Phonics, Nora Goydos, etc. Someone just posted about an entire series online for free, but i have it bookmarked on my other computer. It looked great because it followed a similar order as OPGTR and was very incrimental.

[Mommee & Baba]

We have some Bob books and downloaded several I See Sam books (my kids like these better). Once we're ready for â€real booksâ€, I'll just go to the early reader section of the library. Unfortunately, they do tend to have a lot of large words thrown in.

 

There are also Primers available on a Google Books. McGuffey, Free & Treadwell, and some others.

 

For now, my son is mostly reading from his curriculum (Dancing Bears), but I sometimes have him read some easy Dr. Seuss to me (the parts I know he knows). He's not ready to read library books yet.

 

My poor girls were directed last summer to the early readers to check out. They picked out several and we came home. The next few days we opened them up to only realize they had ALOT of tough words in them! The worst part is that experience discouraged my girls. I took charge next time and thumbed through each book we checked out!

[amselby81]

Thank you so much for the recommendations! I'm very interested in the sonlight book list. I assume I can only order it by phone? I can't find anything about it on their website. Many of the books on the list are easily found in the library, so I can just buy the books that are harder to find, like the one about a ball of string.

[fraidycat]

I didn't use readers. I just let DS pick books based on his interest.

[besroma]

Nora Gaydos

Pathway readers

CLE readers

 

Also...the AAR readers are beautiful. My son enjoys reading them.

[shawthorne44]

Thank you so much for the recommendations! I'm very interested in the sonlight book list. I assume I can only order it by phone? I can't find anything about it on their website. Many of the books on the list are easily found in the library, so I can just buy the books that are harder to find, like the one about a ball of string.

 

I wouldn't even buy the list. The website will tell you the "included items" and you could go from there.

 

You could also look at the P3/4 list of books. A book you read to them at first would become a book that they read to themselves and then it could become a book that they read to you.

[ByGrace3]

Thank you so much for the recommendations! I'm very interested in the sonlight book list. I assume I can only order it by phone? I can't find anything about it on their website. Many of the books on the list are easily found in the library, so I can just buy the books that are harder to find, like the one about a ball of string.

 

I find the Sonlight lists very helpful. You can order them off the website. Just search on their for reader schedule and whatever grade you want. Here is the link for the K reader schedule.

[carlamom2ansnm]

From 3rd grade on up, I love the lists at http://www.battleofthebooks.org/book-list/ - my girls do Battle of the Books and they always have such wonderful books on the lists. There's generally a variety of easier and harder books, classic and more modern books, but all wonderful books :)

[Tanikit]

I used the sonlight readers as a guide, but only bought some of them - I found it fairly easy just reading through the books to figure out what order to schedule them in and have also found that my DD does better if she reads something that has high interest for her even if it is slightly harder for her. Many of the sonlight books come in a series so you can always supplement their reading with more books at the same level - eg there are many books about Nate the Great and Frog and Toad and many of the other books (like Clara and the Bookwagon for example) belong to a reading series that is graded and you can just buy the next level up if your child needs to go further.

[OK Family]

:iagree:

We use the Sonlight Readers with the schedule, for our reading progression. I really prefer to use 'real' books, and the Sonlight lists are done so well that the progression is pretty seamless.

 

 

I agree.

[Ellie]

DD is starting to read, and I'm not sure what to do for readers since we do not do a boxed curriculum. We have access to some decent libraries, so I'm sure I wouldn't even need to buy anything, but I wouldn't know which books would be best, and which order to go in, etc. I could buy the sonlight books, but I'm not interested in their LA curriculum. W/o buying the curriculum, I wouldn't know what order the books go in.

 

So what do you do if you do not use a boxed curriculum?

I didn't answer all your questions. :-)

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "boxed curriculum," so I'll just tell you what we did. :-)

 

We went to the library weekly and my dc checked out whatever books they wanted to read. It didn't matter to me in what order they read anything. They could tell when they looked through a book whether it was interesting to them or nor, and whether they could read it or not. I let them decide that on their own.

 

There were books I wanted to be sure they experienced, so I read those aloud to them, one chapter a day right after lunch, each day we were home.

[stripe]

I also supplemented with some leveled readers. I found Free & Treadwell readers online, and liked them somewhat because they use folk tales. With my oldest, I used the Pathway readers as well, but I didn't bother again. They were okay but the folk tales are more interesting to the current new reader.

 

There are some other readers I've found cute but, since I own the primer and year 1 of the Free & Treadwell, I just stuck with those, but I do have others that could be read online.

 

An old post

 

Incidentally, you can get all the Treadwell/Free readers online up to grade 6 at least. I used them and liked them (and we discussed them in the recent non-babyish readers thread).

 

From Google Books -- where some are mislabeled --

Reading--literature: the primer

 

Reading-literature: Book 1

 

Reading Literature: Second Reader

Reading Literature: Third reader

Reading-literature fourth reader

Reading Literature: Fifth reader (took me forever to find!)

Reading-literature : sixth reader

 

And the manual -- Primary reading and literature: a manual for teachers

 

Primer through Year 3 at Main Lesson (nicely formatted for reading off a computer screen).

 

This the not babyish readers thread has some nice ideas too

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=270393

[Mama2two]

:iagree:

We use the Sonlight Readers with the schedule, for our reading progression. I really prefer to use 'real' books, and the Sonlight lists are done so well that the progression is pretty seamless.

 

I also agree!

[duckens]

We do use a boxed curriculum, but listed below helped immensely:

 

 

 

Bob Books

 

Sight Word Readers -- Dd5 would read the two set sight words when they showed up in the book, and I would read the rest of the words.

 

--Also, as she read the Bob books and the Sight Word Readers, I put them in a shoebox by her bed. She was allowed to stay up later (in her bed) if she was reading. These books gave her great practice.

 

--I would also put a post-it note in the back of each of the Bob books:

1) Mom

2) Dad

3) Sister

4) Cats (or dog, or fish)

5) Friend (or Grandpa)

Dd5 would read the book to each person on the list. This gave her practice reading it 5 times to reinforce the words.

 

--Flashcards of CVC words with a picture and name on one side, and just words on the other. Put two on the refrigerator each week, and have your child build them using refrigerator magnets every day before lunch. Review past weeks' words during lunch.

[Kathryn]

We use Sonlight and only buy the Readers schedules. Just type Readers schedule into the search box there and they'll come up.

[Kathleen in LV]

We've been using a McGuffey Eclectic reader, which I LOVE.

 

I agree with an earlier poster about a lot of the early readers in the library not being particularly rich in language. I let my son read those for his "fun" reading time because he likes the stories. (He particularly enjoys the short Doddsworth series.)

 

Another option is the Usborne early readers -- I think they come in Levels 1 and 2. We picked up Usborne's Aesop's Fables from the library, and my son really enjoyed it. A lot of the early Usborne readers come in non-fiction topics that you could fit to your child's interests.