Reading at ages 2 to 5
A short picture book to share aloud.
What a book at this level is
These are not descriptions of what we aim for. They are the numbers a draft is measured against before anybody sees it: a book outside them is rewritten, and one that cannot be brought inside them is not sent.
- Length
- 100 to 500 words, aiming at 250
- Pages
- 10 to 16, with 6 to 40 words on each
- Longest sentence
- 10 words
- Reading grade
- Flesch-Kincaid -1 to 1.5
- Lexile
- 0L to 300L
- Pictures
- 8 to 10
- Chapters
- None. It is one story, read in a sitting.
- How much is people talking
- Between 0 and 35 percent
- Built from sounds they know
- No, because nobody at this age is sounding a book out alone
- Danger in the story
- None. Nobody is ever alone and afraid.
What the story is like
How it is put together
Five beats: meet someone, they want something small, they try, a gentle surprise, a warm ending. No villain.
What is worth worrying about
Concrete and immediate: a lost toy, a shoe that will not go on, not wanting to go to bed.
What is funny at this age
Things going wrong in front of you. A joke that comes back. Never sarcasm: a child who does not yet hear it reads it as the thing it literally says, which in a story is usually unkind.
The shapes a story takes
repetition, cumulative, refrain
Verse is encouraged.
The levels either side
Children move between these at very different speeds and the speed is not the interesting part. A reader here is moved when what they actually read says they are ready, not on their birthday.