Jem somehow taught herself to read. We dabbled in Bob Books and then overnight she was blowing through chapter books like Little House on the Prairie. I honestly don’t know what happened.
So, with Max in kindergarten this year, I had my first opportunity to actually teach a child to read. We opted to begin Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons and it proved to be a great fit for him! We completed 3-5 lessons each week and right before spring break, he completed his 100th lesson :) All year long he has referred to himself as a “starter reader” in comparison to his sister who, in his mind, is a real reader. But, as soon as he finished TYCTR he owned the title of “reader” — “I’m a reader now!” he says.
Something about finishing 100 reading lessons gave him this giant boost of confidence. Now he is inhaling books. Just today he said to me, “I love books! I love reading!”
And yes, my heart darn near exploded hearing those words.
Because I love reading. Love love love it.
And I want my children to find the same joy I find from stories and other’s experiences and the big, wide world of knowledge that books lead us through.
Max is still an early reader though. And the English language is tricky with so many rules and sight words to memorize. I want the books he reads post-TYCTR to continue growing his confidence. So, I began researching and testing what books would be a good fit for him now that his official kindergarten reading lessons are done.
The back of TYCTR has a small section titled “What Now?” but I found many of those books to be out of print :( We reserved the few we could at the library, but not enough for my new, voracious reader. Such a good problem to have!
Here are the books we are reading now:
- Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle
- Look What I Can Do by Jose Aruego
- Who Took the Farmer’s Hat? by Joan M. Lexau
- Whose Mouse Are You? by Robert Kraus
- *Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss
- *Home For a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
- *Inside, Outside, Upside, Down by Stan and Jan Berenstain
- Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
- Go, Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman
- The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson
- *A Perfectly Messed-up Story by Patrick McDonnell
- Sam and the Firefly by P.D. Eastman
Here are the series we can’t get enough of:
- *Dear Dragon series by Margaret Hillert and Jack Pullan
- *Elephant and Piggies series by Mo Williams
- *Pete the Cat series by James Dean
- Gossie and Friends series by Olivier Dunrea
- Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel
- Little Bear series by Else Homelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak
- *Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant
- Nate the Great series by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Marc Simont
- Biscuit series by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
- Annie and Snowball series by Cynthia Rylant and Sucie Stevenson
I asked Max to star his top picks since our list got a little long, so that’s what each * means – it’s Max’s star of reading love!