Great Read Alouds for K-2nd Grade {+ Printable!}

Great Read Alouds for K-2nd Grade {+ Printable!}

I LOVE reading aloud to my kids. And they love it, too! According to Jim Trelease, author of Read-Aloud Handbook, reading aloud is not only fun, it gives your child a huge advantage when it comes to learning. Children who start school with a larger vocabulary tend to do better than the child with a low vocabulary. And how do children learn and expand their vocabulary? By hearing words used at home! Often, our conversation speech is “verbal shorthand,” whereas books offer complete sentences and more complex language. Trelease points out that:

Reading aloud also increases a child’s attention span. Finally, reading aloud to your child is a commercial for reading. When you read aloud, you’re whetting a child’s appetite for reading . . . .A child who has been read to will want to learn to read herself. She will want to do what she sees her parents doing. But if a child never sees anyone pick up a book, she isn’t going to have that desire.

Learn more about the benefits of reading to your kids here.

With that in mind, I started compiling a list of my favorite books to read to my children and my Facebook followers to share their go-to reads. Here’s my list of great read alouds for K-2nd grade:

Happy Hollisters by Jerry West

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

Five Little Peppers by Margaret Sidney

Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope

Box Car Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

That’s Nat! by Dandi Daley Mackall and Lys Blakeslee

Meghan Rose by Lori Z. Scott

Adventures of Lily Lapp by Mary Ann Kinsigner and Suzanne Woods Fisher

Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor

Superstition Mountain Mysteries by Elise Broach

Stuart Little by E. B. White

Grandma’s Attic by Arleta Richardson

Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

Amelia Bedelia by Herman Parish and Lynne Avril

Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant

We Are In a Book by Mo Williems

Just in Case You Ever Wonder by Max Lucado

The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt and Tim Jonke

Imagination Station by Paul McCusker and Marianne Hering

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Download the Great Read Alouds Checklist for more great books and to keep track of what you’ve read and what you should check out!

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