Abby's reading

A couple weeks ago Abby, Leah and I went to a used book sale at our church. When we walked, in, Abby went immediately to the chapter/adolescent books. I figured she wanted to get some new chapter books because this is what we had been reading to her at night. She picked out about 8 chapter books.

When we got home she started reading one called My Secret Unicorn; The Magic Spell by Linda Chapman. The next thing we knew, she was a few chapters into it. I decided to look up the reading level of the book and found out it was a level 4.1. (This stands for a fourth grade book, the first month of school) Holy Cow! I was floored. She's only in Kindergarten! So I decided to ask her about the book and she went into full details about the story line. She was even able to tell me that words that are italicized meant that they were thoughts or a dream.

I realize that she may not have understood 'everything' in the book, but I do know that she got the storyline. She did come to us every so often to ask what a word is or means. Heck, I still do that to Greg when I am reading.

I decided to talk to her teacher about this. She was not surprised at all. The last time she had tested Abby she was at a reading level of 3.0 and she knew that Abby was comprehending a lot more than we thought.

I do not plan to push her to read this higher level. Her teacher wants her to still be a kid and enjoy books of all levels. I also do not want her reading material that may be too mature for her, just because she can read it. I plan to read this book myself to see what it was about and what kind of content it was. There are many more books by this author in the series that Abby would love to read, too.