Raise kids who love to read

According to a 2016 International Literacy study, students that love to read and feel confident about their reading skills achieved better test scores.  Help your child develop a love of reading with Bayard magazines - the benefits are obvious.

Reading Difficulty Levels

Easy reading is text that your child can read with few or no errors.  Easy reading is suitable for independent silent reading, and can help improve your child’s reading confidence.  This type of reading is important for developing a love of reading because it keeps reading fun.

Challenging reading is text that your child reads with some difficulty.  The challenge facilitates literacy skills building and works best with guidance from an adult.  When a challenging text becomes easy, the progress can be a big confidence boost for both parent and child.

Frustrating reading is text that is too difficult for your child.  It’s important to avoid this because it can cause negative feelings about reading.

How to make the right choice?

Choosing the right reading materials can be difficult but children are forgiving.  If you choose the wrong book, magazine, or newspaper – it’s okay, just don’t stick with it or wait until it’s a better time to reintroduce it.

If you’re not sure about your child’s reading level, there are many tools to assess them.  The Five Finger method is a popular and easy one:  Ask your child to hold up five fingers.  For each word on a page that your child doesn’t understand, ask them to put one finger down.  If there are more than 5 words that your child doesn’t understand on the same page, it’s likely the text is too difficult.

If you’re not sure about the difficulty of reading material, make use previews or excerpts whenever they are available.  Let your child test and try for themselves!  They will be able to tell you if something is too difficult or not interesting.