Niles Public Library District - Kids' Corner: News from Youth Services for Thu, 05 Nov 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:37:39 EST

Kids' Corner: News from Youth Services

It's Time for Summer Reading!

Make a Splash--Read!

Glummy's back for another year of Summer Reading. This time he seems to have disappeared
at a waterpark...hmmm. Kids can earn turns on our fun game to try to help rescue Glummy, and
along the way, they will win fun prizes, get great coupons from our local businesses, and can even
pick out a paperback book to keep! We have something for everyone from birth through high school,
so come in today and get signed up!

PARENT PLACE:
Helping Your Child Learn to Read

Over the summer, many parents like to work with their children on their reading skills. Many of the publishers of easy readers assign each of their books a reading level. The problem is, each publisher uses a different system! What one publisher calls a Level One, another publisher might make a Level Three, or they may use some other system altogether.

We thought that was confusing even for us, so the Youth Services staff spent many hours assigning our own reading levels to all of the books in the Easy Reader collection. That way, at least in our own collection everything is pretty consistent.

The first thing you should know is, the levels do NOT match grades. They just show the steps: When reading a 1^st level book is too easy, it’s time to move onto the 2^nd level books. Then it’s time for the 3^rd level books, and finally it’s time to move to the 4^th level books. There aren’t many 4^th level books published, because usually by then a child is a good enough reader to begin reading easy chapter books. In our collection, those books are marked with an orange label saying “Easy”.

The levels were assigned by our staff who have experience as teachers as well as librarians. They first came up with a list of what to look for, such as:

*How many words are on each page?

*Are words repeated a lot?

*Do the pictures match the words to give clues to what the words mean?

*How long are the sentences?

*How many of the words are familiar words (cat, and, the)?

*How many of the words are easy to sound out?

*How complicated is the story?

*How big is the type?

If you have any more questions about the Easy Reader Levels, please ask at the desk. We will be happy to help!

Check out these new paperback series!

FEATURING: