Great Books For New Readers

Zac the Rat and Other Tales by the Starfall Education team

This 15-book series introduces long and short vowel sounds, sight words and grammatical structures through short stories. You can read the adventures of Zac and his animal friends together as they go to the beach, make a mess while baking a cake and enjoy other activities that kids can relate to. Starfall has even made interactive, animated versions of the books available online for free, so your child can listen to the sounds associated with letters as they're sung and read.

Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop by David Martin

Scott Nash's colorful illustrations bring David Martin's Monkey character to life. With this book, your child can begin to associate the correct words for colors with the bright balloons. As the starting point in the Brand New Readers box sets, the books come with confidence-building supplies, including a certificate that you can personalize and a poster with stickers to track the books your child has read.

I Like School! by Deborah Schecter

I Like School! is part of Scholastic's 25-book First Little Readers Parent Pack. This series, which comes in three guided reading levels, can help kids who are beginning to learn sight words in school practice reading books on their own at home. The author, who is a former elementary school teacher, uses repetition and context clues to help children read independently.

Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney

Consider reading non-leveled books to your new reader at bedtime. Perhaps they're stories that your child can't read alone, but that you think he or she will love. Such books can add variety and motivate your son or daughter to learn to read independently. Llama Llama Red Pajama and its sequels are fun to read out loud with their rhyming verses. Kids can play the Where's Llama Llama? game online while you access other activities to enjoy with them.

Today I Will Fly by Mo Willems

The Elephant and Piggie books are also great to read together with your new reader. Your child will enjoy following along with the stories, which are written and illustrated in the style of a simple comic strip with speech bubbles. Today I Will Fly introduces Piggie the dreamer and his more down-to-earth elephant friend, Gerald.