Ms. Parrish’s Picks

Charlotte’s Web is on a 4.4 accelerated reading level (4th grade, 4th month reading level). This story is about a runt-born pig named Wilbur, whose life was saved by Fern. This book shares Wilbur’s life experiences. One fun activity for students to complete after reading Charlotte’s Web, is to make a spider out of a paper plate. The legs of the spider are created out of words that have been cut out of magazines (much like the strips of paper of words that Templeton found to describe Wilbur in the story). These words should describe the student who is creating the spider. The teacher can display these crafty spiders throughout the room. 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is on a AD530L Lexile reading level (1st grade reading level). This book is a fun way for students to chant the alphabet. Students can create their own coconut tree while placing the letters of the alphabet in the correct order on the coconut tree. 

The Graveyard Book is on a 5.1 reading level (5th grade, 1st month of school). This story is about a toddler named Nobody who is raised by ghosts and other beings that live in the cemetery. Since most of the characters are introduced by their epitaph poem, this gives teachers an opportunity to study this type of poem with their class. From this point, students can write an epitaph for the remaining characters in the story, based off what they know about that character from the story. 

Bud, Not Buddy is on a 5.0 reading level (5th grade, beginning of the year). This story is about a 10-Year Old who sets out on his own in search of his father, after many unsuccessful foster home experiences. In a 4th-5th grade classroom, a teacher may implement a memory matching game so that students can successfully grasp vocabulary from the story. 

The Giving Tree is on a 2.6 reading level (2nd grade, 6 month). The Giving Tree can be used to teach students about friendships. The Giving Tree focuses on a boy and a tree who both give gifts to each other (not always physical ones) and sacrifice their time or some other attribute in order for their friendship to work. Students can retell/summarize the story to show comprehension by filling in a timeline with the changes that the tree went through, as the book progresses.