Suggested Books

Beginning readers respond well to books with strong repeated patterns, vivid pictures that support the text and engaging stories that reflect their experiences. Fortunately there are many such books available today, some as parts of series, others as individual trade books. A few trade book suggestions are listed below. For a much more thorough list of titles and reading levels, we suggest the following resources:

Fountas, I.C., Pinnell, G. S. (1996). Guided Reading. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc.

Johnston, F., Juell, C., Invernizzi, M. (1995). Guidelines for Volunteer Tutors of Emergent and Early Readers. Charlottsville, VA: University of Virginia, McGuffey Reading Center.

Peterson, B. (1991). "Selecting Books for Beginning Readers", in Deford, D. E., Lyons, C. A., Pinnell, G. S. (Eds.) Bridges to Literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Routman, R. (1988). Transitions. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Predictable Books to read to children and for children to read:

Aardena, Verna, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
Ahlberg, Janet and Allen, Each Peach Pear Plum
Bang, Molly, Ten, Nine, Eight
Brown, Margaret Wise, Goodnight Moon
Carle, Eric, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (and others)
Galdone, Paul, Henny Penny
Galdone, Paul,The Gingerbread Boy
Kalan, Robert, Jump, Frog, Jump
Keats, Ezra Jack, The Snowy Day
Seuling, Barbara, The Teeny Tiny Woman
Shulevitz, Uri, One Monday Morning
Westcott, Nadine Bernard, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Zemach, Margot,The Little Red Hen

Poetry:

Greenfield, Eloise, Night on Neighborhood Street
Clark, Ann Nolan, In My Mother's House
Adoff, Arnold, All the Colors of the Race
Silverstein, Shel, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Jump Rope Rhymes and Jingles:

Cole, Joanna, The Eentsy, Weentsy Spider: Fingerplays and action rhymes

Books for children to read:

Emergent/Early Readers

Alborough, J., There's Something at the Mail Slot
Bang, Molly, Ten, Nine, Eight
Carle, Eric, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Eastman, P. D., Are You My Mother?
Gelman, Rita, More Spaghetti, I Say
Guilfoyle, E., Nobody Listens to Andrew
Hoff, J, Who will be my Friend?
Hutchins, Pat, Rosie's Walk
Hutchins, Pat, The Doorbell Rang
Kalan, Robert, Jump, Frog, Jump
Martin, Bill, Jr., Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Seuling, Barbara, The Teeny Tiny Woman
Wildsmith, B., Cat on the Mat
Ziefert, M., The Wheels on the Bus

Also, Nursery Rhymes and Jump Rope Jingles:

Twinkle twinkle little star...
One potato, two potato...

Early Fluent/Fluent Readers

Arkhurst, J. C., The Adventures of Spider
Averill, Ester, The Fire Cat (short chapter book)
Brown, Marcia, Stone Soup
Cameron, Ann, The Stories Julian Tells; Julian, Secret Agent (chapter book)
Cole, J.,The Missing Tooth
Greenfield, E., Me and Neesie
Lobel, Arnold, Frog and Toad are Friends (and other stories) (short chapter book)
Marshal, J., Fox and His Friends (and other stories)
Mayer, Mercer, There's a Nightmare in My Closet
McGovern, Ann, Too Much Noise
O'Connor, J., Molly The Brave and Me
Schecter, Ellen, I like to Sneeze
Schecter, Ellen, Sim Chung and the River Dragon
Schwartz, A., In A Dark, Dark Room (and other stories)
Shulevitz, Uri, One Monday Morning
Slobodkina, E., Caps for Sale

Wordless Books:

Wordless books are useful to engage emergent readers in using pictures to create and organize stories. They can also be sued with fluent readers to stimulate writing. Suggested use: Ask a child to look through the whole book and "tell you the story" using the pictures. (For a second-language learner, or a very emergent reader, you may need to model this a few times before asking the child to do it all.) You may also want to write down the child's dictated story and use that later as a reading text. (See Developing a Language Experience Story)

Day, A.,Good Dog Carl
Mayer, Mercer, A Boy, A Dog, and a Frog
McCully, E., The First Snow

Other sources for finding books:

Bank Street Book Store
They have a large selection of books for children of all ages
(800) 439-1486 (in New York State)
(800) 724-1486 (outside New York State)

In addition, several publishers such as The Wright Group, Richard Owen, Rigby, Sundance, Children's Press and others have developed series of beginning reading materials for Emergent and Early readers that are being used in some classrooms. For more fluent readers, titles in Bank Street's Ready to Read series, and Random House's I Can Read and Step Into Reading are good sources for more sustained stories or short chapter books.

Web-based sources for finding books:

Bank Street's Library on-line

The Reading Is Fundamental and the Americal Library Association book list