Finding the Right Book for Your Child

Selecting the right book for your child can be difficult. Often times parents will look the cover and title and then quickly flip through the pages to check to see if it looks age appropriate. While finding a book that is age appropriate is extremely important, especially when it comes to content, it is not the only deciding factor.

We must remember that every child is unique and every child learns and develops at a different pace. If your son or daughter is a struggling reader, meaning he or she may be in 3rd grade but be reading on a early 2nd grade level it would not be helpful to find a book for a 3rd grader. When children read books that are above their independent reading level they start to get overly frustrated and become turned off from reading. You must select a book that fits your child interest and is on their individual reading level.

Scholastic has a wonderful feature on its website where people are able to type in the title and author or ISBN number into the search engine and the website will generate the book's level. Figuring out your child's reading level can be tricky because it is dependent on variety of factors, such as, ability to decode new words, reading fluency, comprehension and use of a variety of reading comprehension skills and strategies. Your child's teacher or tutor can assess child's level. Essentially a child's reading level should move up every 6-8 weeks beginning in 1st grade through the middle of 3rd grade. As he or she comes toward the end of 3rd grade, each level's difficulty gap widens and the time he or she spends on a level can be longer.

A wonderful website that can be used as a tool to help your child even more and is a wonderful resource of book is Reading A to Z also known as Raz Kids. Most districts have memberships and will give students a student ID and PW. Ask your child's school if they have one.
Link is below:

Reading A to Z