Bypass Frustration with Readers That Make Sense {review}
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Have you ever wondered how well your child is reading?
With the full set of book from The Magic Stories, not only do I have six printable little books with a well crafted tale, moral teaching (think Aesop’s Fables), and adventure, but there are fun and east to use assessing tools as well.
You do not have to be in the dark about how well your 2nd or 3rd graders is reading.
Leveled readers always make me crazy because they are full of words that are NOT readable for the level my kid is in. The Magic Stories ends that frustrating loop. They give you the list of difficult words first. You can introduce and play with the words for a while before you get to the reading.
No more frustration from a popular character book that is supposed to be helping my beginning reader. Magic Stories lay a foundation to bypass frustration and get your kids on the road to reading success faster.
Here is what we did…
I printed the story on regular sheets of paper and put it in one of those folders with the brads in the center. I had them on hand for my own project. I like the ones with the clear front so I can easily see what is in each folder.
These worked great because I told my daughter she was going to have her very own book AND she could color all of the illustrations herself as she read up to them. The cover was her first coloring project and she could show her handy work right away.
If you are loving the digital option, have the kids read on the Kindle or iPad and you could print the illustrations to give them as coloring sheets.
Before we read we went over the Word Assessment Worksheet. This is a one page sheet with a word list of the Naughty 40 that you will cover in the story. I was surprised about this page. It is a long list. Your child tries to read each word and tell you the meaning. You check the ones they know before you have worked on the Magic Stories, and after you have completed the series you can go back and reassess. You will have a clear gauge if your child has added to their vocabulary knowledge.
I printed the vocabulary words on card stock. Clearly, I am not nearly as cool as the folks who run the program. My card stock is while. I have no sense of adventure. I plan on shaking it up and getting a colored set next time, but remember to get light colored pages. Darker pager are hard to read from and we are working with beginning readers here. The vocabulary cards can be used to work on words that are new to your reader.
My daughter (9) knew 35/40 words, so we are using them to help her younger siblings learn new words. This will help reinforce the words she is learning and, at the same time, I will prepare two more little readers for the price of one. (this is about a dollar each for us, each book set is only $3.95 and the whole six book set is just $16.95, a great value for all that you can do with these)
Before you think this is overwhelming…
All of this took no more prep than hitting print on my computer screen. The reading portion took two minutes for the Running Record sheet. My daughter surprised me but taking her time to tell me some great definitions on the Word Assessment sheet. For a few minutes of effort I have a lot of valuable assessment work in my files that can help me see how well my child is learning.
What about comprehension?
You are going to love the tools that you get to play with. The first exercise is a Maze made to check for comprehension. From the START they read a question and answer T or F to progress through the maze. You can do the reading if you think your kids will read ahead. For every wrong turn they check the missed answer box. Five checks and they need to read the story again. They can always try again, but you have a powerful way to see how they are processing what they are reading.
Want to add a little more and make The Magic Stories a little school project?
Maybe you want to start working on book reports. Or you just want to have a little break from the norm. Either way, there are three more Exercise pages for your to use or choose from for every story. Maybe you could have writers Fridays or you could have the whole folder ready for one of those school days when nothing is going right or you have a long list of errands and appointments. A folder with a pouch of crayons is all you would need to school the go.
Your child can choose a writing project with prompts from the story.
They can make some decisions, and circle the best answer and then write a few sentences.
Or Your child can complete the sentences from the story in their own words.
All of the exercises are right out of the story. The levels are varied so you can have work that fits your reader’s ability. Every task will aid in vocabulary building and reading comprehension. Both of these lead to success in schoolwork and testing. Check out a few more reviews in the link below and see how others are using these as well.
If you are looking for stories with character building themes that reinforces moral ideals that are universal, you would find a winner in The Magic Stories. With all that they have to add to your reading time with their assessment tools, you come off as a pretty smart shopper with your homeschool dollars.
You can also find The Magic Stories on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.
