Still Learning to Read: A Great New Early Chapter Series

 

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

Having the right books for our readers is one of the most important things we can do.  Third grade is a little tricky because kids are at so many different stages as readers.  And if we want kids to read independently every day, we need lots of books that are right for them. So I am always looking for good early chapter books that support readers who are just learning to read longer books.  This week I received two books in the new Agnes and Clarabella series (Agnes and Clarabelle and Agnes and Clarabella Celebrate!) from the publisher.  This is a fun new series about 2 friends and t is perfect for our transitional readers.  

This book is perfect for the beginning of the year 3rd grader  who is just starting to read chapter books. There is so much that I love about these books:

I feel in love with both characters. They have very distinct traits which is good for our young readers when thinking about what to expect from characters we love.

• There are 4 chapters in each book and each chapter is its own little story. That is perfect for readers just learning to read longer books. Holding onto one story over time is often challenging so this is a perfect transition.
• There is enough sophisticated humor that kids will love these books no matter what--I laughed aloud a few times.
• There are chapter titles. I think that is important for young readers so they can use the titles to think about what's coming up.
• The illustrations and font size are perfect. Lots of white space on a page so text is not overwhelming for readers.  I also like that many sentences start on one page and finish on the next.  This is something new for lots of transitional readers and this book handles it well.
• The books are small and they feel like a chapter book but there are lots of visual supports for readers. 

So happy to have this new book! Can't wait for more books about these characters!  

*These are part of "Read and Bloom" based on the cover. There seem to be 3 other books/series in this collection that I'd like to check out--Stinky Spike, Wallace and Grace and The Adventures of Caveboy. I am hoping they support readers in similar was--if so they will be perfect for 2nd and 3rd graders!

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August!  You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead.)

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3 New Series Books!

There are some great new series books out in late 2016 or early 2017.  These are a few I recently discovered!


The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey

I was looking forward to the new series The Bad Guys and was able to read the first book over winter break. What a fun book!  A few bad guys, led by The Big Bad Wolf decide they want to change their reputations and become Good Guys.  In this first story, we meet the characters and follow them as they rescue dogs from the local dog shelter.  The humor in this book is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.  It is a clever concept with pretty funny lines throughout.  There is a lot of visual support so this will be a good series for transitional readers and beyond. The second book in the series is due out in February!

King and Kayla and the Case of the Missing Dog Treats by Dori Hillestad Butler
I was happy to see that the author of The Haunted Library has a new book/series out. My 3rd graders are HUGE fans of The Haunted Library series.  King and Kayla is an early mystery series--great for readers new to chapter books.  I think mysteries are hard for young readers but this one is perfect. A perfect mystery (missing dog treats), some clues and great visual supports.

A Boy Called Bat by Elana Arnold is more of a middle grade novel that is set to become a series according to a blog post I read recently.  The main character in this series is Bixby Alexander Tam (BAT). In this story, BAT's mother, a veterinarian, brings home a baby skunk. They need to take care of it until the shelter can keep him and release him back into the wild.  But BAT wants to keep the skunk as a pet.  BAT is a great new character.  He is on the autism spectrum which makes this series unique. It is a great series and I think a lot of kids will love this one. Looking forward to the next in the series already!


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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Go to Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers

for the It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Round-Up!

Much of the reading I did was catching up on the amazing #PB10for10 booklists.  WOW! Cathy and Mandy have created quite an amazing event. Even though I did not create a list this year, I have been reading so many lists. I have been amazed at the ideas some people had for organizing. And of course, I've discovered new books!  No matter how much I try to keep up with children's books, there are always so many that I don't know.  A good problem to have for sure!  If you have not followed the #PB10for10 hashtag or visited their Google Community, you might want to block off a day or two to check it out!

I haven't done a ton of reading this week. I've done a lot of getting-ready-for-school stuff!  But I found 2 books that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE! It is not often that I find a book that is perfect for a transitional reader AND might make a good read aloud. Well, this year I found 2 amazing books for 3rd graders and I am so excited about adding them to our classroom library. These book might work for primary grades and I think because of what the visuals have to offer, they would be popular in 4th and 5th grade classrooms too.

Lucy by Randy Cecil is a sweet story about a dog, a girl and her father. Lucy is a small, homeless dog who the little girl feeds every day. This is a sweet story with lots going on and one that would make a good read aloud with a document camera.  Each page has a bit of text and a black and white illustration.  There is lots to see in the illustrations. There is also a lot to think about as to how the storylines work together.  I loved falling in love with this book and can't wait to share it with my students.

Juana and Lucas by Juana Medina is another book that will be released in September.  Another perfect book for 3rd graders! And I read somewhere that it is the first in a series. WOOOHOOO!  Juana lives in Columbia and speaks Spanish.  Lucas, her dog is her best friend.  When Juana has to learn English in school, she is not happy. But she works hard to be successful. Juana is a great new character. The pages are filled with colorful illustrations, some fun changes in font and some amusing diagrams like the one below. 

This is a fantastic new series that is PERFECT for 3rd graders!!

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Puppy Pirates by Erin Soderberg

At Nerd Camp, we were able to go into a room filled with books and choose 2 books--what a fun time!  You can imagine the scene with teachers browsing to choose the two perfect books.  Decisions! Decisions!

I had no trouble deciding. I grabbed Erin Soderberg's new series Puppy Pirates (that was released the day of Nerdcamp) and I grabbed Crenshaw. (I had read and loved Crenshaw and wanted a copy for my Newbery Club students.)  The new Puppy Pirates book was the first thing I read when I got home form Nerdcamp.

I am a HUGE Erin Soderbergh fan so I have been anticipating this series since our last Skype visit with her. She showed us the covers and talked a bit about the series.   My 3rd graders LOVE The Quirks series and having another series for 3rd graders by this author is very exciting!

Stowaway is the first book in the new Puppy Pirates series. And how adorable is the cover!?  There were two books in the series released last week--Stowaway and X Marks the Spot. I read Stowaway and am anxiously awaiting the other.  The book is about a soft little puppy named Wally who meets a ship full of pirates and wants to join them. He has always longed for a home and for adventure.  In this first book, Wally has to prove himself to the pirates-to show that he is brave enough to be a Puppy Pirate. The book is perfect for 2nd and 3rd graders. The humor is exactly what they love--one character always says the wrong thing, there is lots of pirate language and there is a bit of word play throughout.  The combination of cute sweet puppies and pirates is a brilliant one and one I know my 8 year olds will love!  The length is perfect for readers newish to chapter books and the plot is easy to follow without being too simple or boring. The language is fun and engaging.  I can't wait to share this new series with my students in the fall!

I was able to volunteer at Nerd Camp Junior and hear Erin Soderberg talk to a group of kids during this even She was incredible and so fun! I learned that the 4th book in The Quirks series is due out in the fall! Woooohoooo!  I think Erin Soderberg is an author who understands perfectly this age group that she is writing for so the more she writes, the better!

Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny by John Himmmelman

I get so happy when I find new early chapter books that are perfect for our transitional readers.   I learned about Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny from Donalyn Miller and it's been on my stack for a while.  I wanted to get it to the classroom but wanted to read it first. It was a very quick and fun read.

Isabel is best known as Bunjitsu Bunny.  She was the best Bunjitsu artist in her school. After we meet Isabel, always in her red Bunjitsu uniform, we read lots of stories about her.  Each short chapter is a stand alone chapter starring Isabel and some of her friends.  Each chapter is 5-8 pages long and each tells a story with a lesson.

The stories are perfect for transitional readers because the lessons in each story and the humor are all accessible to kids 6-8 years old.  It's a great book for first graders who are strong readers and need something they can relate too. It is also great for 3rd graders who will catch some of the subtle humor.

I may use this book later this winter when we start working on theme. Each story has a pretty obvious theme of its own and it would be a great book to start the conversation with when we really dig into theme.  

A fun new book that I am glad I made time to read!

Moving Beyond "Interesting Facts"

I have noticed over the past few years that one of the most popular books in our nonfiction library is Weird but True! 5: 300 Outrageous Facts by National Geographic kids.  It is a book filled with 300 weird facts and kids become totally immersed, wanting to share lots of things they discover. I can see the fascination with these books and I love that they get kids reading nonfiction, but I have noticed that more and more nonfiction books for kids are merely lists of disconnected facts with accompanying photos.  Kids who are drawn to books like this are also drawn to books like Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Books which invite skimming and scanning for interesting facts.  After spending 4 years as an elementary librarian, I saw the impact of being stuck in this kind of reading as students skimmed and scanned and often had misinterpretations because they were merely looking for "cool facts". These books might be a great starting point but if our kids stick with reading only these kinds of nonfiction books, they probably won't grow as nonfiction readers.

I know that the jump from WEIRD BUT TRUE to The Snake Scientist (Scientists in the Field Series) isn't going to happen without some transition. I also know that our young readers don't have as much experience with nonfiction as they do with fiction. So, it's our job to put quality nonfiction--booksbthat move them as readers--in our classrooms.   I have a great collection of nonfiction but as I watched my students over the last few weeks, I realized I don't have much that will help my WEIRD BUT TRUE readers transition to more complex books. The jump from WEIRD BUT TRUE to other nonfiction books in the classroom seems to be a bit too big.

See, this always happens. My husband doesn't quite understand. But, no matter how many books I begin the year with, there are gaps. There are kids who need different books than those I have. So again, I am on the lookout to fill those gaps. Right now, I am on the lookout for books that might be an easy transition to get these readers reading a bit more than isolated facts.  I know they are not going to go for a book with too much text so I have to be purposeful in the books I suggest. This week I found two at Cover to Cover that I am hopeful will engage a few of these fact readers.

101 Animal Babies by Melvin and Gilda is not a book I'd normally pick up because it looks similar to WEIRD BUT TRUE. It is a Scholastic book that looks like lots that are out there. But when I opened this one, it looked perfect for a few reasons.  Each page features a baby animal with 2 photos of the animal.  Accompanying each set of photos is a 9-10 line paragraph about the animal. The font is big and fun enough so as not to be alarming and the text is not so long that it will intimidate readers.  Kids will find very cool facts within the text but the facts are embedded in a paragraph. And the paragraphs are all related in that they are all about animal babies. So lots of natural comparing/contrasting of facts will happen.  This book does not need to be read cover to cover which is another plus for kids transitioning to longer, more complex nonfiction.  I also thought this would be a great intro to the ZOOBORNS blog and might invite some online reading as well.

The other book I picked up (thanks to Beth at Cover to Cover) was Bone Collection: Animals by Rob Colson. The cover of this book will invite readers in as lots of cool skeletons sit on an old journal-type cover.  Each  two-page spread in this book focuses on an animal but the pages work together in that one page focuses on a skeleton and the next page shows a similar animal (not in skeleton form) and how other similar species compare to the featured skeleton.  Each page is filled with short paragraphs of text. Some pages also include photos, notes, labels, etc.  A table of contents and index allow kids to jump in where they want so they don't need to read this book cover to cover. However, the introduction lets the reader know that the book is set up to see similarities and differences between animals and then moves us to the human skeleton where we can see how much we have in common with other animals.  So this book has lots of ways for readers to enter--they can look for cool facts by reading the short pieces on a page or they can put info together by reading a few consecutive pages. Lots of opportunities to push a little further as nonfiction readers.

I'll continue to share more of these transitional nonfiction books as I find them! I'd love to hear about titles that I can add to my collection so let me know if you know of any.

Early Chapter Book: Joe and Sparky Get New Wheels

As I've mentioned before, I've been reading lots of books to prepare for my move to 3rd grade in the fall. I've been focusing on series books but I also know that many of my readers will need more support that the popular series chapter books provide.  This week, I found an easier beginning early chapter book series Joe and Sparky published by Candlewick and read Joe and Sparky Get New Wheels by Jamie Michalak.  I'm so glad to have discovered this series--I think it will be perfect for some of my incoming students!

Joe and Sparky are pretty fun characters who are fun to read about. In this story, this turtle (who likes to hide in his shell) and giraffe (who loves an adventure) go out of their cageless zoo on a car ride adventure.  It is full of fun surprises.

The sentences are simple so transitional readers should have lots of success with text. This book supports young readers in lots of ways. The humor is sophisticated enough to keep readers engaged. The characters stay true to character and there is lots of inferring to do. There is lots of picture support but also lots that has to be comprehended from text only.  Readers have to hold onto the plot of the story in a very minimal way so this book is perfect for readers new to chapter books.

I am excited about this series and hope to pick up a few more. My test for books like this is my own engagement--if I enjoy the characters and story well enough to stay engaged, I am set and I truly enjoyed these characters and their adventure. So I am confident, this is a great series for my students.