Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Count off to 4 and you're ready for more

We have so many new titles coming in right now that we've had to completely re-arrange some of our shelves and overstocks just to fit it all in the store.  What are some of the hot new children's titles?  Well, for that, I'll have to make you wait for our children's newsletter, soon to come.

Well, okay, I will share one growing area with you.  Our early readers.  Penguin Books has released a ton of leveled readers from levels 1 to 4, all snug within a new sleek rack.  What I love about this new rack of ours is that it explains the differences between each level:
  • Level 1, the emergent reader: uses simple vocabulary, word repetition, picture clues, predictable stories, and familiar themes.
  • Level 2, the progressing reader: uses longer sentences, simple dialogue, pictures with context, in-depth plot, and a little more variety in subject matter.
  • Level 3, the transitional reader: uses multisyllable and compound words, more dialogue, different points of view, more complex stories, and an even greater range of genres.
  • Level 4, the fluent reader: use more advanced vocabulary, detailed text, complex sentences, very in-depth plots, and a wide variety of genres.
  • Where's level 5?  We'll, at this point we encourage young readers to try early chapter books -- because they are ready!
Aren't you glad the people writing and plublishing these know what they are doing?  You may find some of them uninteresting.  Others may surprise you in their hilarious stories.  But that's beside the point.  All books are tools in some way.  (How can one not argue that reading is foundational element in life, no matter your path.)  Leveled books didn't really exist when I was growing up, which often made reading a huge guessing game.  The beauty of these is that they help build confident readers by giving them just enough of a challege to keep learning new words, grammar, and story comprehension.  Being a kid can be frustrating enough, right?  Remember when you began reading; it was hard right?  Level by level is the way to go!

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