A handy resource

This is a website with thousands of books listed by reading level. I think it's usefulness is two fold.

1) You can test your child's reading level by looking at the list and choosing a book about where you think your child is, or a little below, or a little above and basically "test" to see where they are.

2) If you already know their reading level you can choose books that you know they can comfortably read with the right amount of challenge, but not so much it's frustrating for them.

Here is the website:
http://home.comcast.net/~ngiansante/index.html

The lists aren't exhaustive by any means, the books listed are those that are easily found at any public library, so not every book is listed.

Molly and I read

and she did really well. She surprised me with how many words I didn't think she'd know that she figured out. Of course she didn't know every word in the book, and some were too long for her, but she can read the great majority of the book independently, which really shocked me. Because I was surprised and curious I checked to see if it was listed on the website. It was, and it was listed as a 2.0 level book, meaning right at the beginning of second grade (halfway through second grade would be a 2.5 etc).

I don't take that to mean she's reading at a second grade level, because like I said, she could read it mostly independently, but still tripped here and there. But, it did solidify my thought that she is on a first grade-ish level, which was my ballpark guess before.

On a completely different note, she's been eating a ton for the last several days and I think she's going to have another growth spurt. I'm thinking by the time her 4 year well child check up rolls around she's going to be around 42.5" tall, which is still at the 90th percentile. She's going to be taller than me by the time she's like 10, awesome.