Our goal as librarians is to help children stretch themselves as they
read. We know that children will reach for harder books if they are
interested in the topic or excited by the story, so by and large, our
approach is to entice them with fun reading -- fun whether hard for
them or not! All good readers read a variety of hard and easy books.
Level is not important. Fun is. That's why we buy riddle books, sports
books, graphic novels and comic books as well as classics, factual
books and dictionaries.
Don't ask children to stick to a lexile rate. Don't ask them to use
the five-words test which says that if they find five hard words on the
page they should put the book back. That's defeatist. No good. How can
they improve if they don't stretch themselves.
Tell the kid to choose something that *interests* her. She should skip
the hard words and try to figure out: 1. does she need to know the word
to enjoy the story. If not, ignore the word; 2. can she read past the
hard word and figure out the meaning after reading the rest of the
page. Kids usually can!
On the other hand, I think it's worth putting the easiest to read
books in a special spot for the kids who are just beginning to read:
the books that publishers label "Levels 1-2," such as Henry and Mudge
and Nate the Great, "Hello House" by Hayward, "Go Dog Go" by Eastman
and "The Pet that I Want" by Packard. Kids in first and second grade
get so excited when they first figure out how to read, and if they can
find these beginner books easily, they'll be that much more likely to
love reading.
Otherwise, avoid level labels, I say!
Joan
Joan Kimball, Concord, Mass. woodkimball@juno.com
Retired from Hart's Hill School Library, Whitesboro NY
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