ABOUT BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Book recommendations by Susan Hall can help you build an age appropriate child's library or book list using the best's children's literature.  The more than 170 children's books on this site are recommended only after having been carefully screened and evaluated by the Authors of Straight Talk About Reading.  Book recommendations are organized by the child's age/school grade and by Lexile Score.

WHAT'S A LEXILE SCORE?

In writing Straight Talk About Reading, the authors screened books for quality, content, type size, artwork, etc. and also had many books screened  to assign them Lexile Scores.  A Lexile Score is an objective measure of a book's  reading difficulty and makes difficulty comparable from book to book .

Each child progresses through higher and higher Lexile Scores as she develops greater reading skill.  If a book's Lexile Score is too high, it will be frustrating, too low and it will be boring.  Some experimentation by the parent will be needed to find the right starting point for each child, but even then, the Lexile Score is a guide.   The books below have Lexile Scores ranging from 0 to 700, in overlapping ranges for grades preschool through 3rd grade..  The table below indicates the Lexile Score range in each group of recommended books.   Please note that a child's aural comprehension is usually 1 to 2 years ahead of their reading level, important when considering parent read-aloud books.