Dear Parent/Guardians,
Your child is now working in level J books at school. Level J books have a wide range of topics and genres
including short biographies and books with short chapters
chapters.. Children need to process longer and more complex
sentences in level J books.
What does a level J book look like?
Level J
•Contains
Contains words with the following patterns: -ick, -ight, -ack, -ow
•Includes a wide range of endings: plurals (glasses), possessives (Susie’s), and contractions (shouldn’t)
•Includes words with the –er
er ending. Some words are spelt differently when –er
er is added. (For example:
happy to happier, heavy to heavier, scary to scarier, sad to sadder, hot to hotter)
•Uses
Uses more complex sentence structure (sentences have nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives)
•Children need to break bigger words
rds apart by syl
syllables
•Children
Children need to use a variety of ways to break apart words (take it apart, use meaning, take off endings)
•Includes
Includes many easy compound words such as outside, something, inside, into, without, anyone, etc.
•The topics are less familiar
iliar to children
•Books
Books often include headings, table of contents, labels, and/or glossaries. Children need to know how to use
each of these to find additional information in the text.
What should we do at home?
•Have
Have your child predict how a character might respond to a situation.
•Ask
Ask your child, “How do you think _______ felt? Can you find a spot in the book that shows that?”
•Have
Have your child tell you if they think the book is humorous, interesting, or exciti
exciting
ng and give reasons why.
•Ask
Ask your child, “What was the problem in the story?” and “How was the problem solved?”
•Discuss if the book is fiction or non-fiction.
fiction. (Fiction books are made up stories, and non-fiction
non
books are
informational and tell about true
ue events/facts.)
•Have your child share his/her opinions about a character and how that character changed in the story.
•Have your child reread books and read aloud to your child every day.
•Practice
Practice using parts of known words to read new words. (Ex: enjoy has the part ‘en’ and the word ‘joy’ in it.)
•Ask
Ask your child, “What did you think about the way the story was written?” and “What did you think about
the illustrations?”
•Have
Have your child summarize important events and identify big ideas from the b
book.