"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar Wilde
In the English Department at Ignite Christian Academy, you will find some star gazers, including Mrs. Brauning, who includes the above quote from Oscar Wilde in all of her email communications. As is the case with many disciplines, I suppose, birds of a feather flock together, and we are no exception. One of the reasons we chose to be teachers is because we love books. We love words. We love reading.
Here are some of our teachers' favorite books and recommendations to enjoy during your summer. Many are classics that are worth looking into. Let your imagination grow with these summer time reading favorites!
Younger readers (4-6th grades):
Sounder, William H. Armstrong
Harriet the Spy, L. Fitzhugh
Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan
A Cricket in Times Square, George Selden
Young adult fiction (that you're never too old to read):
The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
Little House on the Prairie series, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Anne of Green Gables series, L. M. Montgomery
Across Five Aprils, Irene Hunt
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin
More mature readers:
The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, Jane Austen
Flannery O'Connor short stories
Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
If these aren't enough ideas for you, here are a few more book list resources:
Classical Christian Education Support Loop 1,000 Good Books List
Young Adult Library Services Association
Association for Library Service to Children
A Targeted Reading Experience
When your student takes the Academy's MAP test, you receive a report that includes a Lexile Measure for your student. You can use this measure to find books that are a good match for your child's reading level. Matching your reader's Lexile to a book's Lexile will help your student have a targeted reading experience.
"The reader will likely encounter some level of difficulty with the text, but not enough to get frustrated. This is the best way to grow as a reader-with text that's not too hard but not too easy" (Lexile Framework for Reading) .
Go to Lexile's website to learn more about these scores and to search for books by their measure. This information can also be found at most libraries and bookstores.