Next, watch the video and answer the questions. Make sure to be writing in COMPLETE sentences. Your grammar doesn’t have to be perfect, but you need a good answer!
I’ve had lots of parents ask for book lists, and although I have a list of websites that one can browse through to find something they like, I wanted to provide a more specific list of books with a short description and what reading level I think would match them. This list will be updated over time; I’ll add more books as I discover them.
I have included links to the books under each one. I tried to keep it limited to ๊ต๋ณด๋ฌธ๊ณ or ์ฟ ํก, but these can also be found elsewhere, like on Amazon. When possible, I have attached an image that I could find of the inside of the book, just to give an idea of what the contents will be like.
I have also included a Korean translation for my mini descriptions for parents…however, I am using a translator for these (it will take me a year if I do it myself), so the translations might be a bit awkward. Sorry in advance! ๐
I recommend asking your child what they like, and trying out the 1st book in a series before buying the rest! Some kids who read a lot of fantasy might benefit from a simple nonfiction book, and vice versa. Sometimes kids who love nonfiction need some fiction to broaden their creativity. Every student is different, so don’t fret if you can’t find something on the first try!
A great way to increase both learning and immersion is to look up read alouds of some of the books. Not all of them have it, but many are on YouTube. If you want them to practice speaking, make them read aloud with the video, or record their speaking so that they can listen and hear where their own pronunciation is awkward. They’ll giggle and blush at first, but eventually they’ll start paying attention when they talk.
Remember: Long Book doesn’t equal Better Book! ๐ All reading has benefits, even if it isn’t a difficult one.
โญJudy Moody by Megan McDonald: Has a similar main character to the Junie B. Jones series, if your child likes them. A good starting chapter book. There are 3 series: Judy Moody, Judy Moody & Friends, Judy Moody & Stink.
๋ง์ฝ ์์ด๊ฐ Junie B. Jones ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ๋ฅผ ์ข์ํ๋ค๋ฉด, Judy Moody ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ๊ฐ ์์ฃผ ์ข์ ์์ ์ฑํฐ๋ถ์ด ๋ ๊ฑฐ์์. ์ฃผ์ธ๊ณต์ด ์ค์ด B. ์กด์ค์ ๋น์ทํ ์ฑ๊ฒฉ์ ๊ฐ์ง๊ณ ์๊ฑฐ๋ ์. https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000003332955
โญMercy Watson by Kate DiCamillo:
Stories about a mischievous pig. It’s a great starting point for younger 1st grade kids who find reading long books difficult.
A sweet and endearing series about the friendship between a boy named Henry and his large dog, Mudge. Great for kids who like low-stress stories. A good starting book for younger kids. ํจ๋ฆฌ์ ๋จธ์ง ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ๋ ํจ๋ฆฌ๋ผ๋ ์๋ ๊ณผ ๊ทธ์ ์ปค๋ค๋ ๊ฐ ๋จธ์ง์ ์ฐ์ ์ ๋ํ ๋ฌ์ฝคํ๊ณ ์ฌ๋์ค๋ฌ์ด ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ์์. ์คํธ๋ ์ค ์๋ ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ์ข์ํ๋ ์์ด๋ค์๊ฒ ์์ฃผ ์ข์์. ์ด๋ฆฐ ์์ด๋ค์ ์ํ ์ข์ ์์ ์ฑ ์ด ๋ ๊ฑฐ์์. https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000002741886
โญDragons Love Tacosby Adam Rubin A young boy tries to throw a taco party for some dragons, leading to a hilarious lesson about why you should never, ever give dragons spicy salsa. A funny and accessible book for low level readers.
โญThe Day the Crayons Quitby Drew Daywalt Poor Duncan just wants to color, but when he opens his crayon box, he finds letters from all of his crayons that have decided to quit. Each crayon has a funny complaint, from Red wanting a vacation to Pink feeling underused. Not too challenging, and fun for readers who like humorous books.
โญThe Very Impatient Caterpillarby Ross Burach This is the story of a very impatient caterpillar who struggles to wait for the chrysalis to work its magic. He repeatedly asks if he’s a butterfly yet, and his impatience provides a humorous look at metamorphosis. Good for all levels, especially lower ones who are learning about how to grasp the world.
โญCaptain Underpantsseries by Dav Pilkey Two fourth-grade pranksters, George and Harold, hypnotize their mean principal into becoming Captain Underpants, a goofy superhero. The books are filled with imaginative and crude humor, along with flip-o-rama pages for an extra bit of fun. Good for older kids who can understand the humor, and with more difficult words. ์ฅ๋๊ธฐ ๋์น๋ ๋ 4ํ๋ ํ์, ์กฐ์ง์ ํด๋กค๋๊ฐ ์ฌ์ ๊ถ์ ๊ต์ฅ ์ ์๋์ ๋ฐ๋ณด ๊ฐ์ ์ํผํ์ด๋ก ‘์บกํด ์ธ๋ํฌ์ธ ’๋ก ์ต๋ฉด์ ๊ฒ๋๋ค. ์ด ์ฑ ์ ์์๋ ฅ์ด ํ๋ถํ๊ณ ์๋ฑํ ์ ๋จธ๋ก ๊ฐ๋ํ๋ฉฐ, ‘ํ๋ฆฝ-์ค-๋ผ๋ง(flip-o-rama)’ ํ์ด์ง๊ฐ ์ถ๊ฐ์ ์ธ ์ฌ๋ฏธ๋ฅผ ์ ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค. ์ ๋จธ๋ฅผ ์ดํดํ ์ ์๊ณ ์ข ๋ ์ด๋ ค์ด ๋จ์ด๋ฅผ ์ฝ์ ์ ์๋ ๋์ด๊ฐ ๋ง์ ์์ด๋ค์๊ฒ ์ข์ต๋๋ค.
โญI Want My Hat Backby Jon Klassen A bear’s hat has gone missing, and he politely asks all the animals he meets if they have seen it. The clever and darkly humorous ending will have readers giggling with surprise. Very easy to read and short. ๊ณฐ์ด ์์ด๋ฒ๋ฆฐ ๋ชจ์๋ฅผ ์ฐพ๊ธฐ ์ํด ๋ง๋๋ ๋ชจ๋ ๋๋ฌผ๋ค์๊ฒ ์ ์คํ๊ฒ ๋ชจ์๋ฅผ ๋ณด์๋์ง ๋ฌป๋ ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ์ ๋๋ค. ๊ธฐ๋ฐํ๋ฉด์๋ ์ฝ๊ฐ์ ์ด๋์ด ์ ๋จธ๊ฐ ๋ด๊ธด ๋ฐ์ ๊ฒฐ๋ง์ ๋ ์๋ค์ ๋๋ผ๊ฒ ํ๋ฉฐ ์์์ ์์๋ ๋๋ค. ๋งค์ฐ ์ฝ๊ณ ์งง์ ์ฝ๊ธฐ ํธํ ์ฑ ์ ๋๋ค.
โญ Aven Green, Sleuthing Machine by Dusti Bowling:
This is a mystery series about a girl with disabilities, which is a great way to teach kids about them. It is a chapter book series with more difficult words, so I recommend this to kids who are comfortable with a challenge. ์ด ๋ฏธ์คํฐ๋ฆฌ ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ๋ ์ฅ์ ๋ฅผ ๊ฐ์ง ์๋ ์ ๋ํ ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ๋ก, ์์ด๋ค์๊ฒ ์ฅ์ ์ ๋ํด ๊ฐ๋ฅด์น๊ธฐ ์ข์ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ์ด์์. ์ด ์ฑ ์ ์ฑํฐ๋ถ ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ์ด๋ฉฐ, ์ข ๋ ์ด๋ ค์ด ๋จ์ด๊ฐ ๋์ค๊ธฐ ๋๋ฌธ์ ๋์ ์ ์ข์ํ๋ ์์ด๋ค์๊ฒ ์ถ์ฒํฉ๋๋ค. https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000028265046
โญ Here’s Hank by Henry Winkler:
A series about a boy with learning difficulties. This is a chapter book with fairly simple language, at a solid middle ground skill level.
โญ Princess in Black by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale:
A fun series about a princess who secretly fights monsters at night. It has beautiful illustrations, and although it isn’t packed with words, the wide range of vocabulary could prove a bit of a challenge. Great for kids who are fans of Disney princesses. ์ด ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ๋ ๋ฐค์ ๋ชฐ๋ ๊ดด๋ฌผ๊ณผ ์ธ์ฐ๋ ๊ณต์ฃผ์ ์ฌ๋ฏธ์๋ ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ์์. ์๋ฆ๋ค์ด ์ฝํ๊ฐ ํน์ง์ด๋ฉฐ, ๊ธ์ด ๋ง์ง๋ ์์ง๋ง ๋ค์ํ ์ดํ ๋๋ฌธ์ ์กฐ๊ธ ์ด๋ ค์ธ ์๋ ์์ด์. https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000003195492
โญ Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows:
This series follows Ivy and Bean, two best friends with very different personalities. A great series to introduce chapter books to young 1st graders.
One of my personal favorite series as a child- this is a classic series about the friendship and simple daily lives of two friends, Frog and Toad. Good for kids who are still learning how to read without someone helping them.
โญ Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish (or Herman Parish for later books):
Another one of my personal favorites! Stories about a housekeeper, who misunderstands words a lot, leading to funny situations. This is actually a simple book to read, but I find that the humor tends to get missed by younger/less advanced readers.
Adventure and Fantasy: โญ A to Z Mysteries by Ron Roy:
Follows three friends who solve mysteries, with each book focusing on a letter of the alphabet. These are great chapter books for the comfortable reader.
Stories about Cam Jansen, a girl with a photographic memory who uses it to solve mysteries. A good series to introduce chapter books to young learners. Also good for light, casual reading for mid-level readers.
A fantasy adventure series about a girl named Zoey who helps her mother care for magical creatures. Quite full of words, but not super difficult to read. Good for kids who like magical worlds with low stakes.
A series about a boy who attends an academy to become a dragon slayer. Kids who like dragons will love this series. A good mid-to-high level difficulty series.
A sweet story about a robot who is stranded on a wild island and learns to survive and grow. A long chapter book, I’d recommend this to advanced readers who are able to read longform novels.
A fantasy adventure series about siblings who travel through a magic mirror into fairy tales and accidentally change the original stories. Great for kids who like Disney. However, the books are fairly long and I would recommend it to mid-high level readers who are comfortable reading chapter books.
These books are hilarious, ans most kids like the series. They feature A.J., a second grader, and his experiences with the quirky and often wacky teachers and staff at Ella Mentry School. The humor is silly and appeals strongly to this age group. The writing is easy to understand, and I recommend it for low to mid level readers.
This is an extremely popular fantasy series that’s specifically designed for early chapter book readers. It has larger font, plenty of illustrations on every page, and engaging magical adventures about young dragon masters and their dragons.
โญOwl Diaries (A Branches Book) by Rebecca Elliott:
It follows a young owl who writes in her diary about her daily life, school, friends, and adventures in the whimsical world of Treetopolis. It’s colorful and highly illustrated, and not difficult to read.
If your child loves video games, this is a perfect fit! The series follows the adventures of a boy named Sunny and his best friend, who enter the world of their favorite video game. It’s action-packed with bright, comic-book style illustrations. Easy to read and I’d recommend it for all levels.
Katie Woo is a spunky second grader who gets into all sorts of relatable everyday situations, from school mishaps to family fun. The stories are short, sweet, and feature a diverse cast of characters. I’d recommend these for early level readers who need help reading independently.
Alvin Ho is a second grader who is afraid of EVERYTHING, especially school. At school, he’s so scared he can’t speak, but at home, he transforms into “Firecracker Man.” These books are genuinely funny and endearing, dealing with themes of anxiety and overcoming fears in a humorous way. I’d recommend these to a mid-high level reader.
Dory is the youngest sibling with an incredibly wild imagination. She creates imaginary friends which often get her into hilarious trouble. It’s quirky, funny, and great for kids with big imaginations. An easy read for kids at lower levels, or for mid-level children who need something casual.
This is a popular graphic novel-style series, which follows a group of “bad guys” who decide to try and be good. It’s full of humor, action, and surprising twists, with a very dynamic visual style. While it looks like a graphic novel, the text is accessible. Although there aren’t tons of words, the themes and vocab are pretty complex, so I’d recommend this series to a mid-to-high level reader.
Gooney Bird Greene is a unique and charismatic second grader who arrives in class with fantastic, seemingly outlandish true stories about her life. She inspires her classmates to tell their own stories and teaches them about narrative. This author is famous in the West, and her other book, “The Giver”, might ring a bell. This book is much more humorous, and I’s give it to a mid-high level student who likes unique characters.
โญMy Father’s Dragonby Ruth Stiles Gannett Elmer Elevator travels to Wild Island to rescue a baby dragon that is being held captive by lazy animals. He uses his quick thinking and a few clever items from his knapsack to outsmart the animals and free the dragon. A little more challenging, these books would be good for the intermediate reader who is used to chapter books. ์๋จธ ์๋ฆฌ๋ฒ ์ดํฐ๋ ์ผ์์ฌ์ ๊ฐํ ์๋ ์๊ธฐ ์ฉ์ ๊ตฌํ๊ธฐ ์ํด ์ฌํ์ ๋ ๋ฉ๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์์ ์ ์ฌ์น์ ๋ฐฐ๋ญ ์ ๋ช ๊ฐ์ง ๋ฌผ๊ฑด๋ค์ ์ด์ฉํด ๊ฒ์ผ๋ฅธ ๋๋ฌผ๋ค์ ์์ด๊ณ ์ฉ์ ์์ ๋กญ๊ฒ ํด์ค๋๋ค. ์ด ์ฑ ์ ๋ค์ ๋์ด๋๊ฐ ์์ด ์ฑํฐ๋ถ์ ์ต์ํ ์ค๊ธ ๋ ์์๊ฒ ์ ํฉํฉ๋๋ค.
โญFlat Stanleyseries by Jeff Brown
A bulletin board falls on Stanley and flattens him, allowing him to be mailed to different places and slip under doors. Stanley uses his unique flat shape to have incredible adventures, from catching thieves to visiting famous landmarks. Not too long, but has lots of challenging vocabulary that lower level readers might find difficult to grasp. ๊ฒ์ํ์ด ์คํ ๋ฆฌ ์๋ก ๋จ์ด์ ธ ๊ทธ๋ฅผ ๋ฉ์ํ๊ฒ ๋ง๋ญ๋๋ค. ๋๋ถ์ ๊ทธ๋ ์ฐํธ์ผ๋ก ๋ณด๋ด์ง๊ฑฐ๋ ๋ฌธ ์๋๋ก ๋ฏธ๋๋ฌ์ ธ ๋ค์ด๊ฐ๋ฉฐ ๋๋ผ์ด ๋ชจํ์ ํ๊ฒ ๋ฉ๋๋ค. ์คํ ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋ฉ์ํ ๋ชธ์ ๋ ํนํ ์ด์ ์ ํ์ฉํ์ฌ ๋๋์ ์ก๊ณ ์ ๋ช ํ ๋ช ์๋ฅผ ๋ฐฉ๋ฌธํ๋ ๋ฑ ํน๋ณํ ๊ฒฝํ์ ํฉ๋๋ค. ์ฑ ์ ๊ธธ์ด๊ฐ ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ ๊ธธ์ง๋ ์์ง๋ง, ๋ฎ์ ๋ ์ ์์ค์ ์์ด๋ค์ด ์ดํดํ๊ธฐ ์ด๋ ค์ํ ์ ์๋ ๋์ ์ ์ธ ์ดํ๊ฐ ๋ง์ด ํฌํจ๋์ด ์์ต๋๋ค.
โญHiloseries by Judd Winick
A boy named Hilo falls from the sky and crash-lands on Earth, revealing that he is actually a robot from another world. Hilo must team up with his new human friends to defeat a dangerous threat and save the universe. These are comic books, but tend to be on the more difficult side conceptually. ํ๋์์ ๋จ์ด์ง ‘ํ๋ก’๋ ์์ ์ด ๋ค๋ฅธ ์ธ๊ณ์์ ์จ ๋ก๋ด์ด๋ผ๋ ์ฌ์ค์ ๋ฐํ๋๋ค. ํ๋ก๋ ์๋ก์ด ์ธ๊ฐ ์น๊ตฌ๋ค๊ณผ ํ์ ํฉ์ณ ์ํํ ์กด์ฌ๋ฅผ ๋ฌผ๋ฆฌ์น๊ณ ์ฐ์ฃผ๋ฅผ ๊ตฌํด์ผ ํฉ๋๋ค. ์ด ์ฑ ๋ค์ ๋งํ์ฑ ์ด์ง๋ง ๊ฐ๋ ์ ์ผ๋ก๋ ๋ค์ ์ด๋ ค์ด ํธ์ ๋๋ค.
โญNotebook of Doomseries by Troy Cummings
Alexander is a new kid in town who discovers a notebook filled with drawings of goofy-looking monsters. Soon, he realizes the monsters are real, and he must learn to be a monster-hunter with the help of his friends. Great chapter books for mid-level readers. ์๋ก์ด ๋๋ค๋ก ์ด์ฌ ์จ ์๋ ์ฐ๋๋ ์ฐ์ค๊ฝ์ค๋ฝ๊ฒ ์๊ธด ๊ดด๋ฌผ ๊ทธ๋ฆผ์ผ๋ก ๊ฐ๋ํ ๋ ธํธ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฒฌํฉ๋๋ค. ๊ณง ๊ทธ ๊ดด๋ฌผ๋ค์ด ์ค์ ๋ก ์กด์ฌํ๋ค๋ ๊ฒ์ ๊นจ๋ซ๊ณ , ์น๊ตฌ๋ค์ ๋์์ ๋ฐ์ ๊ดด๋ฌผ ์ฌ๋ฅ๊พผ์ด ๋๋ ๋ฒ์ ๋ฐฐ์์ผ ํฉ๋๋ค. ์ค๊ธ ๋ ์๋ค์๊ฒ ์ข์ ์ฑํฐ๋ถ์ ๋๋ค.
โญThe Kingdom of Wrenlyseries by Jordan Quinn This series follows the adventures of Prince Lucas and his best friend, Clara, as they encounter fantastical creatures and solve mysteries in their kingdom. The stories are filled with magic, friendship, and lighthearted action. Great chapter books for mid-level readers. ๋ฃจ์นด์ค ์์์ ๊ทธ์ ๊ฐ์ฅ ์นํ ์น๊ตฌ ํด๋ผ๋ผ๊ฐ ํ์์ ์ธ ์๋ฌผ๋ค์ ๋ง๋๊ณ ์๊ตญ์์ ์ผ์ด๋๋ ๋ฏธ์คํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ํด๊ฒฐํ๋ ๋ชจํ ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ์ ๋๋ค. ๋ง๋ฒ, ์ฐ์ , ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ์ ์พํ ์ก์ ์ผ๋ก ๊ฐ๋ ์ฐจ ์์ต๋๋ค. ์ค๊ธ ๋ ์๋ค์๊ฒ ์ข์ ์ฑํฐ๋ถ์ ๋๋ค.
โญUnicorn Diariesseries by Rebecca Elliott This series is written in the form of a diary from the perspective of a unicorn named Princess Petunia. The books are full of glittery, magical adventures, focusing on friendship and school life in a magical world. The same author as the Owl Diaries, which is a beloved mid-level series for kids. ์ด ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ๋ ‘ํํ๋์ ๊ณต์ฃผ’๋ผ๋ ์ ๋์ฝ์ ์ผ๊ธฐ ํ์์ผ๋ก ์ฐ์์ต๋๋ค. ๋ฐ์ง์ด๋ ๋ง๋ฒ ๊ฐ์ ๋ชจํ์ผ๋ก ๊ฐ๋ํ๋ฉฐ, ๋ง๋ฒ ์ธ๊ณ์์์ ์ฐ์ ๊ณผ ํ๊ต ์ํ์ ์ค์ฌ์ผ๋ก ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ๊ฐ ์ ๊ฐ๋ฉ๋๋ค. ์ด๋ฆฐ์ด๋ค์๊ฒ ์ฌ๋๋ฐ๋ ์ค๊ธ ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ์ธ ‘์ฌ๋นผ๋ฏธ ์ผ๊ธฐ’์ ์๊ฐ๊ฐ ์ด ์ฑ ์ ๋๋ค.
โญHeidi Heckelbeckseries by Wanda Coven Heidi is an eight-year-old girl who discovers that she is a witch. She tries to use her magical powers to navigate the challenges of third grade, often with unintended but hilarious consequences. A less complicated series good for mid-level readers, or low-level readers who need a bit of a challenge. ํ์ด๋๋ ์์ ์ด ๋ง๋ ๋ผ๋ ๊ฒ์ ์๊ฒ ๋ ์ฌ๋ ์ด ์๋ ์ ๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์์ ์ ๋ง๋ฒ ๋ฅ๋ ฅ์ ์ด์ฉํด 3ํ๋ ์ํ์ ์ด๋ ค์์ ํค์ณ๋๊ฐ๋ ค๊ณ ํ์ง๋ง, ์ข ์ข ์์์น ๋ชปํ ์ฌ๋ฏธ์๋ ๊ฒฐ๊ณผ๋ฅผ ์ด๋ํฉ๋๋ค. ์ด ์ฑ ์ ์ค๊ธ ๋ ์๋ ์ฝ๊ฐ์ ๋์ ์ ์ํ๋ ๋ฎ์ ๋ ์ ์์ค์ ์์ด๋ค์๊ฒ ์ ํฉํ, ๋ณต์กํ์ง ์์ ์๋ฆฌ์ฆ์ ๋๋ค.
โญStink: The Incredible Shrinking Kidseries by Megan McDonald Judy Moody’s younger brother, Stink, is convinced that he’s shrinking. He faces everyday challenges and learns to overcome them with the help of his friends and his sister. Great chapter books for low levels to get used to chapter books, or for the mid-level reader who needs a bit of an easier read. ์ฃผ๋ ๋ฌด๋์ ๋จ๋์์ธ ์คํ ํฌ๋ ์์ ์ด ์ ์ ์์์ง๊ณ ์๋ค๊ณ ํ์ ํฉ๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์น๊ตฌ๋ค๊ณผ ๋๋์ ๋์์ ๋ฐ์ ์ผ์์ ์ธ ์ด๋ ค์์ ํค์ณ๋๊ฐ๊ณ ๊ทน๋ณตํ๋ ๋ฒ์ ๋ฐฐ์๋๋ค. ์ฑํฐ๋ถ์ ์ต์ํด์ง๋ ค๋ ์ด๊ธ ๋ ์๋ ์ข ๋ ์ฌ์ด ์ฑ ์ ์ฐพ๋ ์ค๊ธ ๋ ์์๊ฒ ์ข์ ์ฑํฐ๋ถ์ ๋๋ค.
โญHorrible Harryseries by Suzy Kline Told from the perspective of Harry’s friend Doug, this series follows the adventures of a mischievous boy named Harry at school. The books feature simple sentences and lots of dialogue, making them easy to read and highly engaging. Good for most mid-level readers.
โญThe Mouse and the Motorcycleby Beverly Cleary This is an imaginative adventure about a mouse named Ralph who can ride a toy motorcycle. He befriends a young boy and sets off on thrilling escapades. The book is slightly longer and might prove challenging to a mid-level reader, as it is full of unfamiliar vocabulary.
โญThe Chocolate Touchby Patrick Skene Catling John Midas has a magical gift: anything his lips touch turns to chocolate! This funny retelling of the Midas touch myth teaches a lesson about greed in a lighthearted way. Definitely on the difficult side, Iโd give this to a mid-high level reader who knows lots of vocabulary.
โญCharlotte’s Webby E.B. White A timeless classic that tells the story of the beautiful friendship between a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte. With its deeper themes and richer vocabulary, this book is a good challenge for readers ready for a more complex and touching story. Iโd reserve this story for older or high level readers.
โญGeronimo Stiltonseries by Geronimo Stilton This series follows the adventures of a mouse journalist. The books are visually engaging, with various fonts and colorful illustrations. The vocabulary is more advanced and the sentences are a bit more complex, making them a good challenge. A personal childhood favorite of mine, Iโd recommend this to high level readers who appreciate books with just a touch of color.
โญDog Manseries by Dav Pilkey From the author of Captain Underpants, this graphic novel series tells the story of Dog Man, a crime-fighting hero who is part dog and part man. Full of humor and action, this series is perfect for kids who love comic books. Not too difficult, Iโd give this to a low level student.
โญFudgeseries by Judy Blume This classic series is about a boy named Peter Hatcher who has to deal with his mischievous younger brother, Fudge. It’s a realistic and funny look at sibling relationships and everyday family life that kids can easily relate to. An absolute ride for kids who like the original Judy Bloom series. Good chapter books for low-mid level readers.
โญNational Geographic Kids: This is one of the most popular sources of kids’ nonfiction. I used to love flipping through these as a kid! They have multiple series (e.g., National Geographic Kids Readers, Weird but True!, Little Kids First Big Book of…) covering everything from animals, space, and history to science and cultures around the world. Known for amazing photographs and engaging facts. Getting all the details might be a challenge, but kids will probably have some extra fun facts in their back pockets with these. These are just a few of the many options:
โญ”Who Was…?” / “What Was…?” / “Where Is…?”: This series introduces kids to historical figures, events, and famous landmarks. This reading might be a bit on the harder side, and the drawings are realistic. However, if you want your child to start adjusting to such formats, this might be a good place to start.
โญMagic School Bus by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen: While the story and characters go on fictional adventures, these books are packed with factual information about science topics like the human body, space, and the ocean, making learning real information fun. They’re often seen as a bridge between fiction and pure nonfiction. Chapter books with a great balance of exciting pictures and useful information.
โญ “What If You Had Animal…?” by Sandra Markle: This series explores what would happen if humans had various animal body parts (e.g., What If You Had Animal Teeth?, What If You Had An Animal Nose?). It’s a fun way to learn about animals. These are at an intermediate level difficulty.
โญ “Who Would Win?” by Jerry Pallotta: This series pits two animals against each other (e.g., Killer Whale vs. Great White Shark) and uses facts to determine which would win in a hypothetical battle. It’s very popular with โscaryโ animal-loving kids. Not a difficult read for most kids.
โญ Usborne Nonfiction Books: Usborne publishes a vast array of excellent nonfiction books and series for kids, often with lift-the-flaps, cutaways, and engaging illustrations. They cover science, history, geography, and more. I recommend looking for their “See Inside,” “Lift-the-Flap,” and “Usborne Young Scientist” series. The sensory satisfaction of it will satisfy a lot of kids.
โญ DK Eyewonder Books: These books are packed with photographs and detailed information on a wide range of subjects, from ancient civilizations and animals to technology and space. They’re visually rich and great for browsing, or for learning new, digestible nonfiction facts.
These often beautifully illustrated large-format books delve into specific nature topics. These have pretty illustrations, but the vocabulary used is challenging.
This fun and factual picture book explains the science of the ocean, its plants and animals, and its contributions to the world. It also highlights what we can do daily to protect a healthy ocean. Easy to read, great for low levels, or mid level readers who aren’t comfortable reading science books yet.
โญThe Story of Science: How Science and Technology Changed the World by Robert Winston
This book explores the profound impact of scientific and technological inventions on humanity. From theories about the universe’s origins to the discovery of genes, it explains how science and technology have shaped our worldview and advanced civilization.This book is a little on the hard side, so I’d recommend this to mid level readers who read a lot of science books, or high level readers.
โญWhy Do Elephants Have Big Ears? by Stephanie Warren Drimmer
This book delves into the curious questions that kids might have about animals, such as why elephants have large ears, and explaining the functions of the animal features. Good for mid-to-high level readers.
โญOperation Cupcake: How Simple Machines Work by Bambi Edlund
This delightful adventure story features two clever mice who use simple machines to retrieve a delicious cupcake. The book introduces children to the basic concepts of six simple machines, including inclined planes, levers, and pulleys. Great for young, newly independent readers.
This book tracks the journey of a young bobcat as it roams through suburban landscapes to find its own territory. It depicts the beauty and dangers of the wild, offering readers a thrilling and poignant glimpse into the life of a bobcat. Good as a challenge to low level readers, as it provides lots of new vocabulary that they normally wouldn’t come across.
โญStar of the Party: The Solar System Celebrates! by Jan Carr
This humorous and factual picture book tells the story of the planets celebrating the solar system. As each planet prepares for the sun’s “birthday” party-Mercury appreciating its closeness to the sun, Earth enjoying the sun’s warmth-the book delivers facts about the cosmos and its inhabitants. A great, entertaining read for low to mid level readers.
This book makes science accessible to children and adults alike by breaking it down into 100 fascinating topics. It’s packed with facts and colorful infographics on a wide range of subjects, from Earth’s magnetic field to spider venom and black holes. The vocabulary is quite difficult, so I’d recommend this to high level readers.
This book delves into the life of the narwhal, the mysterious unicorn of the sea. It tells the story of a narwhal pod as they migrate from their winter grounds to their Arctic home, highlighting the dangers they face and how their unique tusk and clicking sounds keep them safe. Good for mid level readers who are interested in sea creatures.
This book tells a touching story of love, loss, and rediscovered joy for a Canadian goose. It follows a female goose who loses her mate and navigates through grief to find new companionship, offering a delicate and honest portrayal of loss and recovery. Good for teaching kids about grief, and has some mature elements that could help kids think more deeply.
โญThe Magic School Busseries by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen Ms. Frizzle and her class travel on a magical school bus that can transform into anything from a submarine to a spaceship. Each book is an educational adventure that teaches kids about science in a fun and engaging way.
โญLittle Kids First Big Book of…series by National Geographic Kids This series offers a wide range of topics, from animals to space, with simple, clear text and stunning photographs. The books are an excellent resource for young readers to learn about the world around them. Good for young mid level readers who have curious minds and lots olf questions about the world.
โญThe Cat in the Hat’s Learning Libraryby various authors (based on Dr. Seuss’s characters) This series takes the playful style of Dr. Seuss and applies it to real-world science topics. The Cat in the Hat and his friends explore everything from dinosaurs to the human body in rhyming verse. The Cat in the Hat books are always simple, but kids tend to find the rhymes and language difficult to comprehend. Iโd recommend this to mid-high level readers.
โญFly Guy Presentsseries by Tedd Arnold In this series, Fly Guy and his human friend Buzz explore various non-fiction topics. The books present fun facts about subjects like dinosaurs, planets, and bugs in a simple and engaging way. Great for young, low-level readers who are not used to non-fiction yet.
โญI’m Trying to Love Mathby Bethany Barton A young girl who hates math is visited by the math-eating monster, who devours all the numbers around her. She learns to appreciate the world of math as she sees how it’s used everywhere from baking to sports. Not full of words, but might be a bit difficult to understand for low-level readers.
BIOGRAPHY/HISTORY:
โญ “I Am…” series by Brad Meltzer (e.g., I Am Abraham Lincoln, I Am Rosa Parks).
Very digestible introduction to biographies, I would recommend these to any level.
A beautiful biography of Wilson Bentley, the first person to photograph individual snowflakes, highlighting his perseverance and passion for nature. Great for all levels. https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000010097156
โญ The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Reader’s Edition) by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer: An inspiring true story of a boy who built a windmill to bring electricity to his village. The tone is serious, and the vocabulary could be challenging.
โญHow Do You Spell Unfair? by Carole Boston Weatherford
This book tells the true story of Macnolia Cox, an African American student who achieved remarkable success in the 1936 national spelling bee despite facing racial discrimination. Her story challenges racial prejudice, demonstrating that Black children are just as intelligent and capable as white children. This book has lots of diffcult vocabulary that can be beneficial for both low and mid level readers.
โญRuby Bridges: A Talk with My Teacher by Ruby Bridges
This book recounts the touching reunion between civil rights activist Ruby Bridges and her first teacher, Mrs. Henry, who changed her life. The bond between Ruby, the first Black student to attend William Frantz Elementary, and Mrs. Henry demonstrates the lasting impact teachers have on their students. Great for both low and mid level readers.
The second book in this nonfiction series focuses on Jane Goodall’s lifelong mission to understand chimpanzees and protect the planet. It vividly portrays the life of a scientific pioneer with engaging backmatter that tells young readers how they can be like Jane Goodall. Easy for mid levels, a good challenge for low levels.
โญ Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller by Breanna J. McDaniel
This picture book biography chronicles the life of Augusta Braxton Baker, a beloved librarian and storyteller who became the first Black Coordinator of Children’s Services at the New York Public Library. Realizing there were few books in libraries that honored and uplifted Black people, she championed books, authors, and librarians who centered Black stories. Great for low level readers, or kids who are getting used to biography formats.
โญMuhammad Ali: A Champion is Born by Gene Barretta
This picture book biography tells the unforgettable childhood story of the legendary boxing champion Muhammad Ali. It highlights the pivotal moment when 12-year-old Cassius Clay had his bike stolen, setting him on the path to becoming “The Greatest.” I’d recommend this to kids who are looking for an inspiring story, or like competitive sports. Good for low-to-mid level readers.
โญ Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World by Kate Pankhurst
This book presents the stories of fantastically great women who changed history, celebrating remarkable women who blazed trails not just as leaders but as revolutionaries. From pirate queens to super spies and female pharaohs, the book is full of familiar and less familiar names from 3,500 years of history. Good for mid-high-level readers, as some of the concepts can get a bit complicated.
โญThe Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art by Barb Rosenstock:
A vibrant biography of Wassily Kandinsky, focusing on his synesthesia and how it influenced his art. It’s a creative and inspiring story, and good for all levels.
โญ “Little People, BIG DREAMS” series (by various authors):
This popular series features simplified biographies of famous people from artists and scientists to activists and athletes, with engaging illustrations and a focus on their childhood dreams and achievements.
โญ Ivan: the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate This book tells the story of a gorilla named Ivan who was captured in Africa as a baby and spent 27 years in captivity at a shopping mall. The book teaches about animal welfare and public voice. Works for lower levels, but has some harder vocabulary and the themes might resonate with kids who enjoy emotional stories.
โญ A Ticket Around the World by Natalia Diaz and Melissa Owens This is a nonfiction picture book that takes young readers on an exciting journey around the globe. Through the eyes of a boy, the book visits friends in 13 different countries across six continents. It’s a great way to teach kids about cultural diversity. Good for medium-higher reading levels.
โญ Daughter of the Light-Footed People by Belen Medina This is a nonfiction picture book that tells the inspiring true story of Lorena Ramรญrez, an ultramarathon runner from Mexico. The book highlights Lorena’s unique approach to running: she competes in her traditional skirts and sandals (made from rubber tires), without modern, high-tech gear. This is a great introduction to what might be an unfamiliar culture. Easy to read, even for lower levels.
โญJust Like Rube Goldbergby Sarah Aronson This is a picture-book biography of the brilliant inventor Rube Goldberg. The book explains how his famous contraptions came to be and encourages kids to think creatively about problem-solving. Not difficult to comprehend, and good for kids who like machines.
โญThe Crayon Manby Natascha Biebow This is the true story of Edwin Binney, the inventor of the classic Crayola crayons. The book details his journey to create a non-toxic crayon that was affordable for all children to use. The words are a bit difficult, and the concepts better for mid-level readers.
For kids who like funny songs, they might find this video entertaining/easy to remember the irregular verbs.
This should be a review of what students already know: past tense verbs. You might be thinking, โTeacher, we already learned this in kindergarten! We even did this in class!!โ
The fact is, students speak and write everyday without using the past tense correctly. ESPECIALLY the irregular ones. Yes, even you!!!
You can still get your idea across, even if you do it wrong, but itโs the same thing as saying something like this in Korean:
โ์ด์ ํ๊ต ๊ฐ์.โ
That doesnโt make sense, right? Itโs the same for Past Tense Verbs in English.
First, make sure you know what a VERB is.
A verb is an action, or any word that you can stand up and do.
What is this verb?
Of course, itโs dance! Easy.
Sometimes verbs can be more complicated, like state of being verbs, but we arenโt thinking about those right now.
Next, what is the past tense?
The past tense means something is finished. You did it before, but now you are not doing it.
โToday is Thursday. I went to the store on Monday.โ
Does this mean you are still at the store? Of course not, it means you went home already. Unless youโve been sleeping at the store?!
Get out of here!!!
Anyways, now you know the past tense.
The rules for making words past tense are pretty complicated looking, but they really arenโt that bad.
Rule 1: Add -ed to the verb.
Walk โ Walked
Play โ Played
Listen โ Listened
Rule 2: If the verb already ends in –e, just add -d.
Live โ Lived
Love โ Loved
Close โ Closed
Rule 3: If the verb ends in a consonant + y, change the ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add -ed.
Study โ Studied
Cry โ Cried
Try โ Tried
Exception: If the verb ends in a vowel + y (like: play, enjoy), just add -ed (played, enjoyed).
Rule 4: If the verb ends with one vowel + one consonant, or it’s a short, single-syllable word, double the final consonant before adding -ed.
Stop โ Stopped
Plan โ Planned
Refer โ Referred
Note: This rule can be a bit tricky, but common examples are usually short verbs.
Thatโs a lot of words, so let’s do some practice.
Hereโs an online site for practicing simple irregular past tense verbs, if youโre a kid who wants to practice typing or are lazy ๐ (just type the correct word and press โCheckโ):
Unfortunately, irregular verbs are almost entirely memorized, or learned over time. However, for 1st graders, memorization and repetition come more naturally than older students. So, I recommend lots of review (like, lots!) until it becomes natural.
Next is a PDF file with many irregular verbs. This is the main thing to focus on in this lesson. (not made by me- source: irregularverbs.org)
Note to parents: I recommend quizzing the student by saying the first word (โbeatโ) and have them say the last 2 words (โbeat, beatenโ) as the answer. You can also ask them to spell the word if it seems like theyโre unsure. Put a star on the ones that they get wrong, and have them make flashcards to practice.
After youโve studied the list, try this worksheet, and only look at the answers if you have to.
Note to parents: This is a difficult worksheet, and will take some time, maybe even several different sessions. I recommend having your child mark the ones they couldnโt remember or get wrong, and have them do the sheet one more time at a later time, when the words arenโt fresh in their mind. Another way to do this instead of having the student write the answers, is by reading the sentence aloud to them and have them fill in the blank verbally. This can help sharpen their listening skills as well.
Overall, this is a very simple grammar concept, but in practice it is hard to perfect. Even some native speakers still struggle with them, so don’t feel too bad if you can’t get it down perfectly! Good luck!