Reading Comprehension For Beginning Readers

When it comes to beginning readers, the most important thing is to not discourage them.  You want to raise a lifelong reader not somebody who is able to read if he/she has to.  Children should fall in love with books from the early years when he/she is being read to.
What do little ones enjoy in early books?  Plenty of colorful illustrations, a captivating but rather simple story line filled with situations they can easily relate to and kiddie humor. Children also like patterns and repetitions.

The requirements for early readers are almost the same: illustrations, a simple story line, repetitions and in addition, large font.

Children usually have their favorite book characters and it would be so great and helpful to have the same characters in the books they are about to read all by themselves to make the transition easier, wouldn't it?  Guess what?  Not only they make beginning readers with those beloved characters but also practice books and activity books.

Pumpkin and I have been using a wonderful reading workbook from SPECTRUM series Reading Grade1 where children can learn to comprehend very simple texts and do exercises with their favorite chracters created by Mercer Mayer.

  Who doesn't like Little Critter?  And speaking about illustrations, there is no shortage of them.  They accompany the little passages of text to help your child understand the plot better.

The workbook is for 1st graders but it depends on the level of reading your child has reached.  If he/she can read level 2 readers, knows the phonics - it is good to go.  This is how it looks inside.  The texts get more challenging as you go further which is exactly what you want.

I think, I got it at Barnes & Noble.  It was a great purchase.  The book saved me a lot of time looking for readers with exercises on the back.

You might want to give it a try. ;)

stART: Blueberries for Sal

I came across stART a couple of weeks ago and liked the idea of reading and art combination right away.  Our public library has a similar program every Saturday where children have a story hour first and then they do craft related to the story.  My daughter enjoys it very much.  This week I decided to participate in stART carnival created by A Mommy's Adventures. This week she has a fun craft, by the way.
Yesterday we read a classic children's book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey.

The story has a great plot that children can relate themselves to. Two little ones - little girl Sal and Little Bear - get lost for a little while while picking blueberries which resulted in swapping moms and creating a comical situation enjoyable for young listeners.
We liked this story so much that we decided to make our own Blueberry Hill and the main characters so we could role play it.  I made the characters by drawing them with colored pencils and glueing them to cardboard.   Pumpkin and I made Blueberry Hill together.  Cardboard, colored paper, hole puncher and glue is all you will need.

This is our Blueberry Hill with two moms and two little ones.