Reading at Home

A Lexile measure (for example 650L) is a number for how hard a book’s text is, based on sentence length and word difficulty. Your child’s NWEA MAP Reading report gives a Lexile score or range. Books at or a little below that range are the most likely to work for independent reading.

A higher Lexile is not a reason to skip a book. Encourage your child to try books above their range, and read them together or aloud. Treat the number as a rough guide, not a limit. It says nothing about content, so use the grade lists for that.

Lexile has not measured every book. Most Islamic titles and many older books have no Lexile, so use the lists and your own judgment for those. For a series, the Lexile is for the first book. Levels can differ a little by edition. As a loose reference, Common Core stretch ranges are about 420L to 820L for Grades 2 and 3 and about 740L to 1010L for Grades 4 and 5.

The day count is an estimate of how many days a book lasts at 30 minutes a day, using the book’s approximate length and a typical reading speed for the grade (shown at the top of each grade). Books marked Read aloud are for a parent to read to the child, at about 110 words per minute. “Read aloud” is a suggestion, not a rule: your child can try those books alone if they are able. In Kindergarten every book is read aloud. A slower or faster reader will take more or fewer days, and word counts are estimates.

Every grade has four lists. Islamic books come first: the Qur’an, the Prophets and the Sahaba, aqeedah, fiqh, hadith, manners, and stories from Muslim authors and publishers. Classical foundations draws on classical programs such as Memoria Press and Ambleside Online: fables, fairy tales, legends, myths, poetry, old school readers and older novels. Classic literature was chosen for wholesome themes. Nonfiction covers biographies, science, and how things work.

All of the non-Islamic titles on this list were first published before the year 2000. Books from before 2000 are much richer in language and literary value, they rely much less on pictures to carry the story, and they are much less likely to have amoral themes.

Classical schools teach Greek and Norse myths as literature and cultural history. Many of these stories carry themes of morality, such as courage, loyalty, humility, justice and the cost of pride. They also describe gods that people once worshipped. Read them together. When a story shows shirk, name it out loud and talk about tawhid with your child. You can also point out where the story matches values we share, so your child sees what is common across traditions and what is different. Or skip them.

Start at your local library. A good and cheap way to always have books your child can read is to visit every two weeks. Library cards are free for county residents, and librarians are trained to help children find books that fit their level. Every book on these lists can be requested from the library as well as bought, and libraries can often order books they do not have.

Each title also links to a page where you can buy it, usually on Amazon. A few Islamic books are not sold on Amazon, so those link to the publisher or another bookseller. Editions, prices and availability change, and for older books the linked edition is sometimes a newer printing of the same text.

Some books carry a short note in italics (a sad scene, a Christian setting, magic). Look a book over first, and move up or down a grade level as your child needs. Scary or ghoulish series, books built around themes that go against our values, and explicitly Christian texts such as Pilgrim’s Progress and the Narnia books are not on the lists on purpose.