Books for Kindergarteners

Kindergarten is a pivotal year in learning to read and getting kids interested in books. While our children were in Kindergarten, my wife and I would read to our Kindergartner almost every night. We let them pick out the book they wanted us to read to them and encouraged them to read parts of the books back to us.

Below are some of the books my kids loved to read. It doesn't matter if they pick the same book every night as repetition is a key component to learning to read. What matters is they learn to love to read books.

The right start for your Kindergartener

These are probably basic and intuitive, but here's some of the best advice I have seen when it comes to getting a kindergartener interested in books.

1. Read their favorites - If they like something continue to read it, even if you don't. Children in Kindergarten will be more interested if they are reading books about their favorite characters. Disney books for example, follow the same basic story as the movies.

2. Repetition - It's ok to read the same book over and over again. Repetition is the key to almost anything.

3. Let the kindergartener try to read on their own. It's ok to let them try to read on their own, some are ready, and some are not. Positive encouragement is key to continue their reading success.

4. Reading a book is sometimes just looking at the pictures. If a child is sitting in the middle of the floor looking at a book. Leave them be, they are interested in a book and this will encourage reading on their own later.

5. As you read, ask "What do you think is going to happen next?"

A great game to play in the car to encourage learning letters and sounds.

Let's face it we all spend a lot of time in the car with your child. Use this time to play a game that begins to teach your five year old the beginning and ending sounds of words.

The game can be any category you want, for example, food.

Someone starts by naming a food. Hamburger. Hamburger ends in R, so the next person has to name a food that starts with R, like Rice.

E. The next person might say Egg.

G. The next person might say Grapefruit

Of course, the subject matter doesn't have to be food. It could be animals, geography, or boys names.

Fred - ends in D

Daniel - ends in L

Louis - ends in S

Steve

and so on.

My daughter loves the Fly Guy series of books. It's the only books she wants to order now with her Scholastic book order. In 2010, Hi Fly Guy was a Theodor Seuss Giesel Award honors book.

My school district provides a list of skills each Kindergartener should learn as they progress through Kindergarten.

• Recognize and name all of the uppercase and lowercase letters
• Recognize and say the common sound of most letters and write a letter that goes with a spoken sound
• Produce rhyming words and recognize pairs of rhyming words
• Use their knowledge of letter sounds to figure out simple, regularly spelled, single-syllable words
• Read high-frequency words that are recognized by "sight"
• Begin to track print when listening to a familiar text being read or when rereading their own writing
• Read simple texts containing familiar letter-sound correspondences and high-frequency words
• Retell a story in their own words or reenact it, getting the events in the correct sequence
• Respond to simple questions about a book's content
• Make predictions based on illustrations or portions
• Reading Comprehension comes before Listening Comprehension

My kids usually stay to a group of books as it becomes easy for them to relate to the same characters over and over again. Fly Guy, Dinofours, and Dr. Seuss all give the children a great story with great pictures as visualization is just as important at this age as the words. When the kindergartener is ready, these books easily transfer into first reader books.