Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: Intermediate Reading Levels, Reading Levels

This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 2 months ago by Sara B..

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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March 9, 2011 at 2:37 am
Sara B.
Participant
I’m not entirely sure what grade level my dd is reading at. She’s nearly 8, and is currently reading “More New Friends,” one of the Pathway readers. They are “easy” for her, she says, though she still mispronounces a few words (bigger words, more unfamiliar words, or ones that don’t follow the rules). She tried reading National Velvet, but by p. 9, she decided on her own that it was too hard with too many unfamiliar words. How would I find out her reading level, and can anyone suggest some books she might find are perfect for leisure reading at this age/level?
Thanks,
Sara 🙂
March 9, 2011 at 4:43 pm
knitnspinner
Member
Did she choose NV because she’s a horse lover? I think I read every horse/dog book there was in the library at that age. I can’t remember when I read NV…what about the Billy and Blaze series? Although I didn’t read those as a child-I thought the one we recently got from the library was pretty good. I know I loved the Thornton Burgess books, the Incredible Journey, 101 Dalmations(the original) all the Terhune dog stories, and Marguerite Henry’s horse stories. My dd thought Terhune’s Lad:a Dog was too hard but after I had read many of them aloud to her, she was able to enjoy them on her own. Maybe you could find an audio version of NV first?
FWIW, I think all of mine were still doing readers at that age-we’ve used Pathway, Christian Liberty Nature Readers, and Elson readers. They branched out from there as they were ready. We did stop Pathway after Climbing Higher to focus on the other two series. (Just ’cause the budget was tight-I’d be happy to have them one day.) If you have the other Pathway books-maybe you could have her skip the one she says is easy but still have her read it for leisure.
March 9, 2011 at 5:23 pm
nerakr
Participant
One of my standard recommendations for that age is Beverly Cleary. Your dd may be ready for Ramona. The chapters are a little long, but she could break it up if it became a problem. Then there’s The Boxcar Children. (1st 19 only; the others are ghost written by committee).
March 9, 2011 at 5:53 pm
csmamma
Participant
In addition to Pathway readers, my dc have enjoyed the recommended readers from Sonlight . You can choose age/grade level links on the left hand side of the page.
March 9, 2011 at 6:26 pm
sheraz
Participant
We try to follow their interests but the rule of thumb that I try to use is if there are more than 5 words a page that are too hard, the book is a little beyond their level. Sometimes we go around that and read it anyway, sometimes we try another book and come back to it later after more practise.
March 10, 2011 at 4:19 am
Sara B.
Participant
Thanks, everyone! I have a list of books to look into now. Seems I have some books missing again… Happens a lot since we just moved this past fall. But I thought I had gotten all of them out. I hate moving. <roll> Anyway, I’ll do some digging, and hopefully we’ll find lots of good ones for her to sink her teeth into. She LOVES to read (yay!).