Book Recommendations for String Reader Going into 1st Grade

[AggieMama]

I am looking for book recommendations for DD who is going into 1st grade. She loves Bad Kitty books and will reread them at will. I think she likes the humor and the fact that there are pictures on every page. I have tried getting DD to read other beginning chapter book likes Magic Treehouse, in which she says those are too easy. I've suggested more appropriate for her reading level, approximately 3rd/4th, but DD is discourage by the large number of words on the page. DD also devoures Babymouse and The a Princess in Pink. Does anyone have any suggestions of books or strategies to get DD to read books that are more at her level?

[Kiara.I]

Start reading The Princess and the Goblin to her and get called away to the phone three or four chapters in....

 

And then, of course, many picture books have very sophisticated language so you can let her read picture books all you like!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[reign]

Ivy and Bean? They are easy reading but very funny and have lots of pictures.

 

The shorter Roald Dahl books often have many pictures.

 

There is a Pippi Longstocking edition drawn by Lauren Child which had slightly large print. My oldest loved it in first grade!

[Tanaqui]

I would stick with picture books, actually. More complex languages and sentences than beginning chapter books, but at a much more advanced level. And they have pictures!

[HomeAgain]

I would stick with picture books, actually. More complex languages and sentences than beginning chapter books, but at a much more advanced level. And they have pictures!

 

Yep.

 

I let chapter books be for free reading.  He's working his way through Diary of a Wimpy Kid books because they still have pictures, but are bigger.  For our time together, I choose picture books of various levels and designs

Anthologies - Usborne makes a great set of Illustrated books (Aesop's Fables, Norse Myths, Greek Myths..)  They fit right in with our history rotation, each story in it is short, and there are a lot of pictures.

Short bites - Magic School Bus, You Wouldn't Want To Be, the Newspaper series...these all look very wordy until the kid starts to attack them and realizes there's more than one thing going on the page. 

Picture books - complex language, good way to work on timing, fun to read.  We checked out two books on the Lascaux caves.  One was a picture book, the other was a chapter book.  I just looked up their reading levels in AR and the picture book was a 4.5, chapter book a 3.4.  Guess which one he chose to read and enjoy?  

 

 

Chapter books don't always mean good books.  It just means they have built up the stamina and internal reading enough to enjoy the story in their head.  Give it a while and continue to give her good picture books to help her along.

[pitterpatter]

Scholastic Branches? We've moved on now, but DD won't let me donate the ones we bought because she likes looking back at all of the great pics. The language may not be complex enough for your DD, though. They're high interest books with high visual appeal.

 

http://www.scholastic.com/branches/

[Jackie]

I have a 6 year old who can read anything put in front of her, but likes series similar to what your daughter is reading. I mostly let her be, and stock the library bin with picture books written at a higher level. Here's what I put together for this year's main book list: http://everchangingchild.blogspot.com/2016/06/second-grade-literature-list_30.html

[fralala]

Well, now I have to look up the Bad Kitty and Babymouse books for my first grader, who is probably reading at the same level as your daughter if tested, but whose favorite books are the Bink & Gollie series (with Alvin Ho a close second). And I can't blame her!

 

Personally, I almost completely ignore reading levels when selecting books for my kids. My first grader does just fine with complex language and sentence structure as long as the font size is large enough and the book has some pictures, and I think those are the better books anyway. I save the well-written, interesting, rich chapter books without pictures for our read-alouds, and assume that she is developing motivation to be able to work up to those.

[kiwik]

Do you have a kindle? My just turned 7 year old just finished Mary Poppins on kindle which I am sure he wouldn't have done if I just handed him the book. I had read them out loud last year so it was familiar but I was surprised. Second the Usbourne books.