Our own little Reading Rainbow

When you have young children in your home that are learning to read, your daily life revolves around books, spelling words, pronouncing words and bedtime stories. My oldest peep is in 1st grade and we have really been working hard to improve her reading, mainly the flow and quickness.

We are lucky that our city school system offers a wonderful computer reading program called Headsprout. http://www.headsprout.com/

Wonderful learning tool for young children. My peep was a little behind on her Headsprout at school, they have to complete 80 by the end of the year. We got a letter home in January letting us know how many she had done at school and we were able to set up the account through our home computer that links to what she was doing at school. In just 3 weeks she was not only caught up to her classmates she passed most of them and is now on #78 of the 80 she needs to complete before May.

We also spend time reading books at night or on the weekends. I love the Scholastic First Reader books and some other first reader books I have found. The problem is that for such a small book they are a little pricey, $4.99 to $5.99 a book at Target.

I really like to reward my peeps with books when they have done a good job. I recently started visiting the local thrift stores here and was delighted to find many, many first reader book and other wonderful children's book for .25 to $1.25. They were in very good shape, maybe a worn corner or two. They LOVE when mommy goes shopping at the thrift store because they know when they get home there will be little knowledge building treasures sitting on their beds.

Another benefit to finding great discounted children's book is if you read for your child's class. I am lucky enough to be a weekly reader this year at my daughter's school and I love shopping for books to read to the class. I think I might enjoy it more than the kids do~