Reading doesn't always have to mean physical books. There are so many other things that can inspire reading or make reading more fun. Or to use my daughter's words, "let's make it comfy." 

So let's make reading comfy with this bookless reading gift guide.

In the classroom, I remember watching kids' eyes gleam when they could pick from the book bins that had chapter books. They made it to the big time.

It's a treasure - the chapter book. It is a rite of passage for any reader. 

When kids get to a point of reading longer books, they get really excited. So let's build on it with fun first chapter books that are content appropriate!

When kids first pick-up chapter books, they will become proficient quickly and voracious readers. They will read everything they think they can, so let's point them in the right direction!

​Enjoy!

​"Your child is reading on level." 

But, what does this mean? And, what are teachers looking for so they can tell you these things?

Different districts use different assessments - but many, now use Guided Reading. I'll focus the explanation today on guided reading levels. You see the guided reading levels listed across this site and they are really a great tool for you to examine a book for its appropriateness. 

It used to be that a book's text was run through a computer program to determine its text complexity. The computer runs an algorithm based on vocabulary, sentence length, and word frequency. And then it spits out a lexile number - something like 550L.

You've seen this before. Microsoft Word's grammar check will use this algorithm on your writing and will spit out a Lexile measure so you can determine at what level you are writing.

The biggest piece Lexile misses can be content. You can have a book that is "appropriate" for sentence reading, but not at all appropriate content-wise. A good example of this is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a book that based upon its Lexile is listed as a 4th grade book but is usually not deemed appropriate content-wise until later in middle school. 

Enter, Guided Reading.

Guided Reading is an assessment framework put together by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell after years, and years and then more years of reading research. In short they determined, "...what the reader needs to be able to do at each level to read with accuracy, understanding, and fluency."

Guided Reading levels include many factors to determine appropriateness. This includes illustration support, layout of the book, length of the book, the use of dialogue, vocabulary, the use of characters, plot, and sentence structure. There are more elements included in determining a book's Guided Reading level - but you can already see this is a more complete picture of looking at a book to determine its appropriateness.

The Guided Reading levels is a letter based system - A to Z. ​And likely, your kid's classroom teacher is assessing your child using this framework. So they know a lettered level that your child is on and that determines if they are on-level or not.

The goal, is to match the level the reader is reading at to a book that is at the same level or slightly higher. So, if your child is reading at a Level M, you'd want to offer book choices in the Level M and N range.

For reading aloud, a good rule of thumb is to read a couple levels higher than your reader could read on her own. So, if your reader is a level M - you would want to read a Level O, maybe P aloud with her. This is because, you think aloud while you read, and so you are helping your reader access the book - a book she otherwise wouldn't be able to read on her own but not so out of reach that you are stopping every sentence to explain. More on that later.

Level A books are appropriate for Kindergarteners (emerging readers) and Z level books are appropriate for kids in 7th and 8th grades (High School ready, can read any genre readers). 

Here is the breakdown of the appropriate guided reading levels and on-track grades for any of the assessments schools would use.

So, when the teacher tells you that your child is reading at a certain level, you can reference this handy chart to see what grade level that matches. 

I will delve into this more deeply, but for those of you who are chomping at the bit...There are definitely characteristics we look for as educators to determine if your child is at a certain Guided Reading level. 

I've included the full, downloadable file with all of that information, for each level, so you can see what should be happening - and for that matter, what's coming up. 

Enjoy!

​

-James Patterson

We all want our kids to read for enjoyment. Sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes, we want our kids to read, so we reward it with watching the matching movie. Trouble is, sometimes those movies are horrible. Or the books were unenjoyable.

Of course, you always need to judge your kid and interest, but here is a group of books plus their movie counterparts that are great together. And furthermore, as long as you discuss the similarities and differences, likes and dislikes, reading books and watching the matching movie is a good part of your child's required literacy digest.

Enjoy!

​​I went to a play a few weeks ago. By myself.

It was a play with dark content. I had wanted to see it because I liked the actors who were in it and thought the story sounded interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining. So, I went.

I was one of the only people there by myself. I didn't think it would be a big deal and it wasn't...

Until it was.

​As I was leaving the theatre, I saw pairs of people around me discussing the play. I could overhear snippets of conversation - "I didn't buy the love story part..." - "I liked the set design - that made it more believable as a story..." - they were all debriefing the play.

I so badly wanted to jump into anyone's conversation - I needed to discuss and debrief too!

Alas, no one I knew could debrief with me because I didn't share the experience. Even now, as I reflect, there is still a void. I couldn't fully analyze the material and therefore couldn't come to appreciate the play as much. I realized, it's part of why you don't see people going to the movies on their own very often. Part of the value is being able to share the experience and then talk about it afterward.

​Reading is no different. 

​We read out loud to our kids from birth on. Sometimes before. But something happens when kids get a bit older and it seems like.....we suddenly stop. At first, it might seem like a fantastic adventure into independence. We're proud of our kids when they can read on their own - and they want to. After all, isn't this exactly what we've wanted?
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​Hooray, we cheer! And, we savor those few stolen moments on our own - now not having to shoulder reading every night to our kids. Or when our kids aren't tired for bedtime, but can sit and read their own book triumphantly, it feels awesome.

But, we miss things too. Our kids, who we know so well when they are young, start to become a little strange to us. We might miss what their favorite book is, because we're not reading it together night after night. Or, we don't know what they are reading because we haven't read the book at all - so there is no dynamic way to talk about it together.

There is a part of them we stop knowing when we stop reading with them.

But of course, this is part of growing up. Right? Yes, it is. But we can and should hold on longer.

Let me make my case based on research.

The reason for reading aloud to our kids when they are little are many. It helps build confidence and motivates young ones to want to grow up and be able to read on their own. But, it's also to support a love of reading, to build a reading community at home and to be able to allow you to spot any gaps in your child's understandings as they read. When you read and think aloud with your kids, you are showing them how good readers ask questions about what they are reading. You are exposing them to vocabulary and explaining new words.

You are helping them to understand. And you are showing them that reading is important and enjoyable. You are giving them someone to talk about the book with - you have a book club of two. 

None of this changes when they learn to read on their own.

As Nancie Atwell, a prominent reading researcher, notes about middle school students, "Everyone is enthralled by  good read-aloud...it becomes a bridge for kids, taking them into territories they might never have explored because they don't yet have schemas for a genre, subject, author or period...And they provide a communal reading experience in which we enter and love a book together."

She follows this up with mentioning that she only reads literatures she, herself likes. I am a big proponent of this - Read joyfully. Together.

In a recently published study, researchers compared comprehension levels of students after they have read through passages silently, on their own to valid comparisons from kids in 1960. The findings reported were a little startling. Kids in 2nd grade comprehended more or less on the same level as their counterparts in 1960. After 2nd grade, the growth curve for kids now is less than that of the kids in 1960. In other words, our kids now are not doing as well as kids who were in school in 1960 when it comes to reading comprehension. 
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In short, 

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​And we've known this. In 2000, the National Reading Panel concluded that there was not enough evidence to support sustained silent reading as a practice on its own in classrooms to effectively increase comprehension. This would extend to its use at home, too. 

The add-on conclusion to this is that it can be difficult to gauge comprehension when kids engage in silent reading. Teachers know this and they use silent reading time to conference with kids, check-in and track progress. Teachers ask their students to keep reading journals and reflect on their reading. Silent reading in school is not usually just silent reading - it's packed with extras.

There is usually a class read-aloud in your child's classroom all the way up to 8th grade and sometimes into high school. Sharing books allows for discussing together - and for evaluating comprehension. Reading aloud allows teachers the opportunity to model good fluency, explain vocabulary, ask questions and have a shared, bonding experience with their students. 

This is not to say that silent reading is not at all useful. It is. It allows for choice, a little experimentation and independence in reading. Those are all important for motivation - a key component in creating happy readers.

But having stories read out loud to kids, is still one of the best evidence-based ways to teach good reading habits to kids. Even as they get bigger. 

Enjoy!

P.S. This is not a stand-alone post. There is a companion post with suggestions on how to do great reading with your older kids at home so that it's not overly burdensome and enjoyable for you both.

I mentioned a couple studies above that you might be interested in reading more fully. If you are, here are downloadable pdf files for the studies.

Alexandra N. Spichtig, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Christian Vorstius, Jeffrey P. Pascoe, P. David Pearson, Ralph Radach (2016). The Decline of Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Efficiency in the United States: A Comparison of Current Data With Performance in 1960. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(2), 239–259. ​

National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.