Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Books to read to gifted 4yo

I will throw in a plug specifically for Mr. Putter and Tabby, who are particularly beloved in our family.

Ultra's already mentioned Moomintroll, which I had forgotten earlier, to my embarrassment.

I would add Ogden Nash's book, Custard the Dragon, and to a lesser extent its sequel.

Shel Silverstein's books, in particular The Missing Piece and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, are a huge favorite of my DD7 and have been for years.

Jack Prelutsky's A Pizza the Size of the Sun is another grand silly poetry book that is very popular with both my kids.

The Lyle the Crocodile books were my absolute favorites when I was very small.

Avi's series: Poppy, Poppy and Rye, etc.

22b, you'll have to forgive me, but I kind of feel like we are being trolled. You NEVER READ a SINGLE BOOK to your children, yet they cracked the code and taught themselves to read at age 2? Did they watch a crapload of educational TV and play Starfall all day? There had to be some mechanism of learning.

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks (and other Freddy books)

Winnie the Pooh

I know someone said Newberry books but I loved going through all the Caldacott books with my sons. Some of them they didn't like but I loved doing things like reading Stone Soup and then making our own stone soup. Or reading a Caldacott winner book and then reading all the books we could find by that same author (we called them author studies).

Or if a Caldacott book has other versions by different authors (like Stone Soup does) we enjoyed getting them all out and doing some comparing and contrasting of the versions. Explaining that some tales started as oral stories and so now that they are written down there are slightly different versions.

This might be a helpful book Classic Children's Literature for Your Home Library: 550 Years of Delightful Reading (1450-2000) [Paperback] by Rev. Paul Peck M. Ed or maybe your library has something like this in its reference department.

My kid loves Charlotte's Web. He rereads portions of it even now. We finally checked out "The trumpet of the swan" - he is about four chapters in (I keep meaning to preread the book, but haven't yet done so)

Yes! Moomintroll books - how I could forget those? My boys love those stories!

I read to all my kids while pregnant - in fact I recall my husband reading during my first pregnancy and us having a good giggle as he absent mindedly showed my bump the pictures.

There are a few Puppy Mudge (level 1, or maybe pre-level 1) books, too, for kids who are just starting out.

DD is started to level out of Rylant's books, and I think I will miss Henry and Mudge and Mr. Putter.

Arnold Lobel has some wonderful books: the Frog and Toad series is my favorite, but we also enjoyed "Fables" and many of his others.

When DD was 4, she had a hard time listening to regular chapter books for some reason. The first chapter book she really got into, when she was 5, was "Beezus and Ramona" (in which Ramona is 4yo). After that we read through several more Ramona books, then went on to the first few books of the Little House on the Prairie series.

Dr. Seuss is always good, and can lead to conversations about characters and feelings and morals.

Yes, we never read to our children. The oldest started reading at about 2.75, the 2nd at 3.75, and the 3rd is a non-reading toddler. We've had plenty of toys including educational electronic toys, laminated charts, puzzles, things to build with, and climb and jump on. And we've had plenty of (cheap 2nd hand kids') books to pick up, look at, and eventually read. There've been great PBS Kids shows: Word World, Super Why, Between the Lions, Signing Time, Sesame Street, Electric Company. Internet usage probably came after initial reading, but it is a great resource to reinforce reading, and learn maths and other things. There is unlimited screen time in our house. So our children have been surrounded by plenty of information to enable them to "crack the code" and teach themselves to read. But we never read to them, and we never actively taught them.

Enid Blyton, the Faraway Tree. Also the Magical Wishing Chair.