Our Military Life Blog

Dive into Reading!

Back to school is around the corner and it’s prep time! We all start working on the reading lists that most of the teachers put out. If they don’t have one, it is easy to create your own! Each child reads on a different level, and so to help them gain further confidence in their reading, we as parents, want to do what we can to ensure that they are confident in all that they do….starting with their education!

Each summer we start looking at where the kids are in their progress, and determine what we can do to push them a little bit more. Finding books that they are interested in can be a little difficult sometimes, since their interests change about as often as their daily clothing choices! But, one way to combat these changing interests is to find things to read together as a family. The librarian is a great resource for this as well! Our family has begun asking what they recommend for reading, and have walked away with a ton of books! We have begun to enjoy reading together as a family again.

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We began investing into classics and other children’s books to get our kids more interested in what they were reading. By letting the boys choose what we read together as family has helped improve not only their reading, but their vocabulary as well. And for me, watching their imagination spark is incredible. Now, if you have more than one child, they might want to read something different, and that is okay! We let each child choose the book they want to read, and then we work on them simultaneously! We do a chapter a night out of each of the books, and they help by reading some of the lines on each of the pages. By choosing books that are slightly above their grade level, we have been able to improve their vocabulary above and beyond!

Here are some recommendations sure to please everyone:

  1. The Secret Garden – Francis. H. Burnett
  2. Howliday Inn – James Howe
  3. The Sword and the Circle – Rosemary Sutcliff
  4. Ghost Hawk – Susan Cooper
  5. Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling
  6. Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien – this one is recommended for high school and older, although if you want to read the entire thing out loud to your kids, they would enjoy it!
  7. My Side of the Mountain – Jean Craighead George
  8. The Land of Stories Series – Chris Colfer
  9. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
  10. The Boxcar Children – Gertrude C. Warner

Most of these authors have numerous books, and if you enjoy them, you are sure to find more that you can delve into and enjoy even more!

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Rebecca