thoughts on reading chapter books to 4 year old? - Page 2

[Attached Mama]

What??!!
I would def read them to a 4 yo. And who is to say what is "age appropriate"? Me and my sisters were/are all bookworms and read way above age appropriate reading levels and never had any problem finding books to read. We either read shorter books and more of them or found longer ones to read. There are so many older book series too that are longer - little house, hardy boys, black stallion, elsie dinsmore (great old fashioned out of print but can find on ebay or other places) etc

That's so awesome that your dd loves books so much! As I'm sure you know they are so good for imagination, learning, vocabulary, etc LOL I'm still a bookworm can you tell?

[witchbaby]

my husband is reading charlotte's web to k right now and she loves it.

[Nankay]

My dh read [U]Sarah, Plain and Tall[U] to ds at about that age. When he would finish it, dd would insist he start all over again with the first chapter. I don't know how many times that book was read. DD is 11 now and is a voracious reader and has filled bookshelves on 3 of her 4 walls.. (one wall for her bed and closet! )

[JenniferC]

We've read through the first 3 Little House books with our DD's, 3.5 and 9 months. They seem well received, I know I love them, and Kaelynn often asks for them! As long as the themes are gentle I'd say woohoo!

[tropicalmom]

Just want to highly recommend to all a book entitled The Read Aloud Handbook. I think it's on it's third edition or so. The beginning is a very interesting read about the importance of reading aloud to children through their entire life with references to many studies that have been done. Then he has a list of all kinds of books which are great to be read aloud with a short synopsis of each one and the ages which it is appropriate. It's a gem for picking out appropriate books for children of different interests. Includes picture books (for all ages), poetry books, all kinds. Also has lots of recommendations such as if they liked this, they would also like X, Y or Z. He makes a good point that not all books make for reading aloud due to the writing. I've also seen that he has some other books that are just lists. Anyway, do a search in amazon or BN and you'll get more info.

Happy Reading!

[samfan]

My oldest daughter, now 10 loved Oz at that age

Hi!
I'm a frequent lurker and just had to chime in about The Wizard of Oz. My oldest dd has been a book lover since infancy and from about age 4 until about 6 she was obsessed with the Wizard of Oz. Were you aware that L. Frank Baum wrote 14 books about the land of Oz? Thank goodness he did since we read them all over and over for two years! When our little dd was born when dd was 5 she really campaigned to name her Dorothy! As far as running out of books that are appropriate, never! We've made great use of the book company, Chinaberry; their reviews have really helped me choose good books for her. We also have befriended a really well-read children's librarian at our local Library and she always has suggestions for us.

I think the age to begin chapter books depends so much on the child. As I said, we started at about 3.5 with dd1. With ds, though, he wasn't interested until he discovered Harry Potter at age 6; he's just been more of a non-fiction kinda guy. With dd2, age 5, we still don't do much by way of chapter books. I think if we could read one through at one sitting she would go for it but she's just not interested in the chapter a day thing!

Happy reading!
Laura