Nibbles, Bites and Chomps: Leveled Readers

I am always on the hunt for readers -- chapter books that are targeted for a certain level. Even better if they are leveled from easy to harder. I was happy to run across the Nibbles, Bites, Chomps books from Running Press at my local Half Price Books, and even happier to pick up a couple of "Nibbles" and a "Bite" for about 5 bucks.

As the name suggests, the "Nibbles" are easier: big print, lots of pictures, not too long. Probably appropriate for 1st or 2nd grade. "Bites" are a little harder: smaller print, longer paragraphs, not so many pictures, a bit longer overall. Probably best for readers who can read mostly independently, but might need some help here and there. And of course the "Chomps" are harder still, more like a traditional novel, and intended for independent readers.

What really struck me with this series is how many titles would be appealing to boys. Let it Rip is a story about two boys who sell farts in a jar. My Amazing Poo Plant is the story of a girl who grows a plant from a pot where a bird pooped. Walter Wants to be a Werewolf is the story of a family of werewolves who all change when the moon is full -- except Walter. The subject material just seems more targeted to boys, though there's stuff in there that girls will like, too. You can see the whole collection at the Running Press website. It's not huge, but it's got a nice number of titles. Even at full price, they're not too bad. And it's always nice to have a few more weapons in your arsenal choices in your library when the kids run out of stuff to read.

Note: what really appealed to my son was the bite-sized chunk that's cut out of each book. That, more than anything else, made him pick these up and flip through them. Sometimes novelty is your friend.

Green Light Readers

photos courtesy of BarnesandNoble.com

Anyone with a child beginning to read knows that not all "readers" are created equal. For starters, the levelling system will vary greatly from brand to brand -- a "1" from one company might be more or less the same as a "2" from another, while a "2" from that company might look more like a "3" from still another company. Sometimes there's variability within a company -- not all "2s" are at the same level of difficulty. Frustrating if you don't have time to run out to the bookstore and thumb through books to see just how complex the text is.

Green Light Readers, therefore, were a welcome surprise for us. I was looking for something my son could read independently, but something that wouldn't intimidate him with a lot of small text. He's past most of the true #1 readers -- the kind with only 5-10 words per page, often staring Dora the Explorer or someone else that he considers "babyish." I needed something with perhaps 5-7 sentences per page, but with vocabulary he could manage, and it had to have a story he could follow and appreciate. It couldn't be Dora saying "Hop across the rocks! Hop! Hop! Hop!"

Daniel's Mystery Egg by Alma Flor Ada had a story that was interesting to my 6 year old. A boy finds an egg. His friends all predict what kind of egg it is (ostrich, alligator, duck) and what problems he's going to encounter because of it (not enough room, reptile trying to eat him, noise). Finally the egg hatches and we get to see what was in it. Daniel is quietly confident throughout the book and the pictures on each page clearly cue the reader about the content of the text. This is great for emergent readers -- if they aren't sure about a word, like ostrich, they can look at the picture and make an educated guess. If they've read it before, they can look at the pictures to remind them what that new word is. Many books do this, but this series seems particularly good at dovetailing the illustrations with the text.

The text is larger than normal, which is good for 5-6 year olds whose eyes haven't yet developed to the point that they can comfortably read smaller print (normally, this occurs between ages 6 and 7). We liked this book so much, we bought another one called Did You See Chip? by Wong Herbert Yee. The story in this one was perhaps not as compelling, but the text and illustrations were again well-coordinated for beginning readers. Both books are level 2 readers.

Another nice feature is that many of the Green Light Readers are available in Spanish, making them applicable for Elementary foreign language teachers, Bilingual teachers, bilingual families and those who just want to expose their children to another language. All the books come with suggested activities at the back of the book. While we chose not to do them, they are a nice feature for enrichment or possibly for homeschoolers.