Thinks Like a Big Kid, Feels Like a Little Kid
There is a 100% chance that I am completely unprepared for that which is this child.
From the sparkles she throws around everywhere she goes to the swagger she somehow possesses, she is just ... too much.
So much.
All of the things.
But The Thing that recently has been proving my incompetence over and over and over again is That Thing where she can read far beyond her age group.
If you've got your panties in a wad over me complaining about her being a good reader, simmer down for a second and hear me out. The Thing about having a kid who can read well early is that they can read things they just shouldn't. For example, Alexis is SUPER interested in history, so she has made it a habit to check out books from the library that tell her things about Lincoln's assassination, the sinking of the Titanic, King Tutankhamun, etc.
Guess which kid wasn't emotionally prepared to learn that women and children were pretty much the only ones who survived the Titanic? Guess which kid had nightmares for weeks about being aboard the Titanic and losing her parents and soooooooooob waaaaaaaaah soooooooooooob? She very seriously cried for over an hour one day because she couldn't stop thinking about how sad it would be to watch your family members sink to their deaths.
We all lost sleep over it, just as we did when she was worried that there was an assassin walking the streets of Pittsburgh, just waiting for theater-goers to be seated so he could shoot at will.
My point is that I don't know how to keep the bookworm adequately challenged, but emotionally OK. I mean, she's *my* kid, so she's going to end up emotionally scarred, but I would prefer that it be from the damage I cause and not because she's reading stuff she's not old enough to handle just yet.
So, internet, help me out here. The kid can read books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Secret Garden (her current favorites), but she should be reading things like Elephant and Piggie. She loves history, but gets super pissed off if she encounters a lot of words she doesn't understand. Suggestions? Titles? Favorite books?
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Reader Comments (55)
I also loved the Little House on the Praire Series and Nancy Drew. Other favorties were Charlotte's Webb, The Chonicles of Nania and A Wrinkle in Time.
How about The Giver and the Narnia books?
I'm a little late to the party on this one and I didn't read all the comments, but my suggestion would be A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I recall that book having a great impact on me around third grade. Also, I discovered that the newer Nancy Drew series were very engaging around fourth grade.
I love these book recommendations!
Two books that do not seem to be mentioned yet are "Flat Stanley," and "My Father's Dragon." Both are at a 3-4 grade level, but I use both with the advanced first grade readers in my classroom. Year after year, the students love them and report back to me that they received the rest of the books in the series for birthdays or Christmas, and are beyond excited about it! The vocabulary in both books are excellent, so even the readers who are slightly above this level are challenged a bit.
Good luck!
I just thought of another series while shelving some books at work today--the Dear America series. They were super popular when I was a kid, but they might be a little harder to find now. They're historical fiction in the form of young girls' diary entires. There are some boys, too, and royal diaries like Elizabeth I and Cleopatra.