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Tell us about your young reader. Books are organized by color-coded reading levels reflective of age, and grade. You can change the reading level or gender options anytime so your subscription can grow with your child just login into your account.

Read Aloud: Age 0-3 (Level 0)

Short, simple words and sentences, Repetitive vocabulary, and full-color illustrations for pre-readers who are new to books. A mix of board books, paperback & hardcover editions.

$14.75 - $159.00

Read Along: Age 3-5 (Level 1)

Short sentences, repetitive vocabulary, and simple concepts for your child to learn how to read with a little help. A mix of paperback & hardcover editions.

$14.75 - $159.00

Read With Help: Age 5-7 (Level 2)

Engaging stories, longer sentences, and less repetitive vocabulary increased wordplay for developing readers who still need some help. A mix of paperback & hardcover editions.

$14.75 - $159.00

Read Alone: Age 7-9 (Level 3)

More complex stories, challenging vocabulary, and engaging plots for the solo reader. A mix of paperback & hardcover editions.

$14.75 - $159.00

Read Advanced & Chapter Books For Tweens: Age 9-12 (Level 4)

Advance plots and vocabulary with short paragraphs and/or short chapters based on exciting themes to bridge the gap full chapter books. A mix of exciting fiction and non-fiction chapter books, how-to guides, graphic novels to keep things interesting.

$14.75 - $159.00

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Choose Your Reader Level

Past Books

Fiction, coding, and comics for tween boys

Fiction and non-fiction for level three readers

Empowering heroine stories for tween girls

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Reading Milestones (for Parents) - Nemours KidsHealth

Reviewed by: Cynthia M. Zettler-Greeley, PhD

Nemours BrightStart!

en español Hitos en la lectura

This is a general outline of the milestones on the road to reading success. Keep in mind that kids develop at different paces and spend varying amounts of time at each stage. If you have concerns, talk to your child's doctor, teacher, or the reading specialist at school. Getting help early is key for helping kids who struggle to read.

Parents and teachers can find resources for children as early as pre-kindergarten. Quality childcare centers, pre-kindergarten programs, and homes full of language and book reading can build an environment for reading milestones to happen.

Infancy (Up to Age 1)

Kids usually begin to:

  • learn that gestures and sounds communicate meaning
  • respond when spoken to
  • direct their attention to a person or object
  • understand 50 words or more
  • reach for books and turn the pages with help
  • respond to stories and pictures by vocalizing and patting the pictures

Toddlers (Ages 1–3)

Kids usually begin to:

  • answer questions about and identify objects in books — such as "Where's the cow?" or "What does the cow say?"
  • name familiar pictures
  • use pointing to identify named objects
  • pretend to read books
  • finish sentences in books they know well
  • scribble on paper
  • know names of books and identify them by the picture on the cover
  • turn pages of board books
  • have a favorite book and request it to be read often

Early Preschool (Age 3)

Kids usually begin to:

  • explore books independently
  • listen to longer books that are read aloud
  • retell a familiar story
  • sing the alphabet song with prompting and cues
  • make symbols that resemble writing
  • recognize the first letter in their name
  • learn that writing is different from drawing a picture
  • imitate the action of reading a book aloud

Late Preschool (Age 4)

Kids usually begin to:

  • recognize familiar signs and labels, especially on signs and containers
  • recognize words that rhyme
  • name some of the letters of the alphabet (a good goal to strive for is 15–18 uppercase letters)
  • recognize the letters in their names
  • write their names
  • name beginning letters or sounds of words
  • match some letters to their sounds
  • develop awareness of syllables
  • use familiar letters to try writing words
  • understand that print is read from left to right, top to bottom
  • retell stories that have been read to them

Kindergarten (Age 5)

Kids usually begin to:

  • produce words that rhyme
  • match some spoken and written words
  • write some letters, numbers, and words
  • recognize some familiar words in print
  • predict what will happen next in a story
  • identify initial, final, and medial (middle) sounds in short words
  • identify and manipulate increasingly smaller sounds in speech
  • understand concrete definitions of some words
  • read simple words in isolation (the word with definition) and in context (using the word in a sentence)
  • retell the main idea, identify details (who, what, when, where, why, how), and arrange story events in sequence

First and Second Grade (Ages 6–7)

Kids usually begin to:

  • read familiar stories
  • "sound out" or decode unfamiliar words
  • use pictures and context to figure out unfamiliar words
  • use some common punctuation and capitalization in writing
  • self-correct when they make a mistake while reading aloud
  • show comprehension of a story through drawings
  • write by organizing details into a logical sequence with a beginning, middle, and end

Second and Third Grade (Ages 7–8)

Kids usually begin to:

  • read longer books independently
  • read aloud with proper emphasis and expression
  • use context and pictures to help identify unfamiliar words
  • understand the concept of paragraphs and begin to apply it in writing
  • correctly use punctuation
  • correctly spell many words
  • write notes, like phone messages and email
  • understand humor in text
  • use new words, phrases, or figures of speech that they've heard
  • revise their own writing to create and illustrate stories

Fourth Through Eighth Grade (Ages 9–13)

Kids usually begin to:

  • explore and understand different kinds of texts, like biographies, poetry, and fiction
  • understand and explore expository, narrative, and persuasive text
  • read to extract specific information, such as from a science book
  • understand relations between objects
  • identify parts of speech and devices like similes and metaphors
  • correctly identify major elements of stories, like time, place, plot, problem, and resolution
  • read and write on a specific topic for fun, and understand what style is needed
  • analyze texts for meaning

Reviewed by: Cynthia M. Zettler-Greeley, PhD

Date reviewed: May 2022

10 tips on how to write a book

Aspiring Writers' Guide

If you want to create strong texts or dream of writing a book - whether you are a novice blogger or an experienced author - remember: it is better to learn from word masters. We chose tips from ten great books on writing. You will learn how to deal with creative stagnation and uncertainty. Why read books and not copy the style of the greats. The tips are suitable for both future authors and those who simply love great texts.

1. Write in small portions (from Bird by Bird)

It often happens like this: you are plotting an autobiographical novel about your own childhood, or a play about the life of immigrants, or a treatise about ... well, let's say, the role of a woman in history. But tackling it right away is like climbing the slope of a glacier. Feet slip, fingers turn red, freeze, blood oozes from wounds. Then, from the depths of the subconscious, all your nervous breakdowns come to visit and sit around the table. Don't give them power.

“I breathe slowly and deeply — and finally I notice a five by eight centimeter photo frame, which I have specially placed on my desk to remember about small doses. The frame reminds me: I need to write a piece. Small, like a five by eight photograph. That's all for today. Right now, for example, I will write only one paragraph about the place and time of the action" Ann Lamott.

Say to yourself softly and affectionately: “My joy, we will just write about the river at sunset or about the first date.
That's it."

2. Make sure your topic is interesting to the reader (from the book "Author, Scissors, Paper")

"What can I tell you? Who am i? Why should someone waste time and even more money on me? These questions are asked by any author. First you need to realize: each person has something to tell.

First, determine what kind of topic you have: popular or specialized, for an amateur or a person in the topic. Who do you want to tell your story to? Who will benefit from it? Do you want to educate a wide range of readers or improve the lives of professionals in some field? It is impossible to please both at the same time.

Cool story is always there. Inside the fate, your personal history, there is a rhyme somewhere: a meeting, an event that you just need to remember - and in your imagination the process of creating a story starts.

And even personal experience is not always needed. There are simple criteria for selecting and analyzing whether your topic is suitable for public appearance:

- the text should communicate something very important,

- non-trivial to explain important processes,

- to be keenly useful to the reader,

- substantiate a fresh pattern that concerns the reader and give it a name,

- tell the story of a bright hero.

The reader is waiting for you to take him out of the routine into an unknown world for a long time. So create this world in such a way that you want to stay in it.

3. Make a "good novel" checklist (from the book "Literary Marathon")

If you have a desire to create your own novel, the first thing to do would be to understand what "a good novel" means to you. Answer this question in writing.

You can answer vaguely, or you can answer in great detail: first-person narration, superheroes, the Alps, massive invasions of evil elves.

Why is this list useful? The point is, if something is your reading preference, then you can probably excel as a writer as well. These language, color, and style choices resonate with you the most for some reason. These are things that you understand.

You can create such checklists for what you have to write most often - articles, reviews, reports.

4. Use hooks in text (from Living Text)

There are many ways to get started. Some work great in one book but don't work at all in another. You have to choose. Know how to choose.

For example, the False Prologue technique. Here the climactic scene is removed from the middle/end of the book and placed at the beginning.

So the reader immediately "tastes" the main and dramatic event of the whole story.

This technique is popular with directors: thanks to it, the film can be started with a tense, spectacular scene. Examples of books with "false prologue": Gabriel Garcia Marquez "One Hundred Years of Solitude", Stephenie Meyer "The Twilight Saga" (book 1), Emily Bronte "Wuthering Heights".

5. Use the board with cards (from Save the Cat!)

Screenwriter Blake Snyder's technique is a cork board and cards. Hang a large cork board on the wall, take cards with episodes, blocks, fragments of your future text (novel, article, report) and use pushpins to attach these cards to the board wherever you like. You can never part with cards at all. You put a pack of cards in your pocket, go to the nearest coffee shop, take out a pack and sit for hours shuffling your deck, laying out episodes, thinking about the sequence, looking for good and bad moments.

The whiteboard allows you to "see" the big picture before you even start writing.

This is a good way to test the different twists, ideas, dialogues, and rhythm of the story and see how well they fit together. This is a way to render text with good structure. It's great!

6.

Don't write like you talk! (from How to Write Non-Fiction)

You need to write clearly, but you should not blindly copy all the elements of oral speech. If we accurately and literally transfer ordinary everyday conversations to paper, we will see how many repetitions there are, inserts like mmm and uh-huh, how often the interlocutors interrupt each other.

“Readers need clarity.

Written words come together and make sense in the mind of the reader. Try to mimic the tone of a personal conversation. So the reader will "hear" your voice, as if you are addressing him, only without the noise that accompanies oral communication.

7.

Read like a writer (from How to Become a Writer)

Many would-be writers are bookworms. However, the thought of looking at great books under a microscope often disgusts them. But once you learn how to read critically, you will enjoy a much more subtle pleasure than ordinary readers.

Learn to go through the text at least twice. First just like that, and then with a pencil. Notice the rhythm, episodes and scenes, pay attention to words, phrases, stylistic devices.

Don't worry: you won't lose your love for books, quite the contrary. It is impossible to overestimate the benefits of analytical reading.

8. Show, don't tell (from the book "Literary Master Class")

Don't write "it was amazing", but make us say "amazing" after reading the passage. The fact is that all these words (terrifying, beautiful, disgusting, exquisite) tell the reader only one thing: “Do my job for me!” Clive Lewis advised.

Mark Twain taught the same thing: "Don't say, 'The old woman screamed.' Take her on stage and make her scream."

And one more remark on the same subject, from Chekhov:

... you will get a moonlit night if you write that a glass from a broken bottle flashed like a bright star on the mill dam ...

It is necessary to show, not tell, selecting bright, specific details.

9. Find visual aids (from How to Write a Movie in 21 Days)

Have you ever tried to tell someone about your terrible or, conversely, amazing experience, but could not find the words? It all ended with something like “I can’t explain this to you” or “If you were in my place, you would understand.” The thing is, first you need to re-ignite this feeling inside, and then find the right words to describe it.

Find an object that is related to some of your experiences, evokes feelings, such as a lucky coin or a rock from the beach.

If this is a story about your grandfather, you can take his hat from an old chest. If you are writing a story about your grandmother, find the candlestick that belonged to her. If you came up with your own story when you heard a song in a restaurant, take a napkin from that restaurant and listen to that tune again.

Help your feelings to reappear, find helpers for this. Maybe some color will ignite an emotion in you.

10. Ready. Attention. Word sprint! (from the book "Start to write")

This technique teaches you to write without waiting for inspiration. Pick a topic, set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes, and write. If there are problems with the topic, open any book on page 17 and find line 6. This will be your theme.

As time passes, it is important not to hesitate. Let your thoughts run like hounds. Write with a sense of urgency.

Jump over the taboos, illuminate every stray, lonely thought in your head and let it break free.

Verbal sprint helps to turn off value judgment by entering the intuition stream to which high-speed writing is connected.

“Your newsletter is so cool, you don’t even have to buy a book” — say our subscribers. Do you also want to learn about new books about creativity, writing, design? Then leave your mail, we will send you useful inspiring reviews.

314 more books on creativity

How to double your reading speed in a couple of weeks / Sudo Null IT News0001

Speed ​​reading is an important skill in today's fast paced world. If you want to achieve outstanding results in your career or in the study of the sciences, you will have to read a large amount of literature, both technical and fiction. In order to absorb large amounts of information, you need to be able to read quickly.

At the moment, there are a large number of techniques for studying speed reading, all of them have the right to exist. Some are based on serious scientific research, and some, on the contrary, are more like intuitive research. For each person this or that technique is suitable, it is difficult to say which one is exactly right for you.

When a person is aware of the problem of low reading speed, he begins to look for information on this topic on the Internet, books, ask friends and acquaintances. After some time, if this idea is not boring, a certain understanding of speed reading techniques begins to take shape, and then it is important to start applying them.

The simplest techniques that are guaranteed to help you increase your reading speed are nothing complicated. These are just a few exercises that need to be repeated for a while. It's very similar to learning touch typing on a keyboard. You need to do exercises for 15-20 minutes a day and in a couple of weeks you can reach a fairly high speed.

Most readers encounter the classic error that consumes 30% of their reading time. This is a return to the already read text. When it seems to us that we have not caught a thought well, or have been distracted by an external thought, we go back and read a piece of text again.

Focus Training Technique

In order to cope with the return to the read text, it is necessary to keep the focus on the place of reading. To do this, you can use the technique of tracking reading. You need to take a pencil and start to drive it along the line while reading. The focus should always be on the pencil, you can not go back to the read text. At first, this is a difficult task to overcome, but over time it will get better and better.

Speed ​​Up Technique

To increase your reading speed, you need to train this skill like any other. For speed training, you need to read very quickly. Approximately 3 times faster than the desired reading speed. For example, you read at 200 words per minute, but you want to increase this value to 300 words per minute. Then in the speed exercise you need to read 900 words per minute. No need to worry about the fact that you do not remember anything and do not understand - this is speed training. And it's important not to forget the pencil, which keeps you from going back while reading.

Peripheral Vision Magnification Technique

In normal reading, which we were taught in school, a person reads all the words in a line. This allows you not to miss anything written in the text. But this is not always necessary to understand the meaning of the text. If you develop peripheral reading, then you can see not one word but several at one stop of focus on the text.

There are many different techniques for training peripheral reading, the most common is the Schulte tables. Returning to peripheral vision for reading, there is a simple exercise to increase reading speed. You need to read not all the words in the line, but skip a few words at the beginning and end of the line. This greatly increases speed, but does not greatly affect understanding.

When reading at a high speed, you may encounter the effect of reading for the sake of reading, when you do not have time to assimilate information for its further application in life.


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