A Good English Reading Text By sevenseven on Apr 08, 2009 - Updated Sep 18, 2011

Reading Juice for Kids is a series of books created by THE LAB Education Research Center focusing on nonfiction readings in science and social studies. Reading Juice for Kids 1 covers a variety of topics, from elephant families to making banana splits (a particular favorite!). Each unit provides prelearning exercises covering the vocabulary that will be learned in the unit. This is followed by a page-long passage over varying scientific themes. The passage is then followed by two pages of comprehension and vocabulary work.

I like this book because the units are short (typically two pages) and thus can be covered in around 30 minutes. As an added bonus, each book comes packaged with an audio cd that features recordings of the reading passages (especially helpful for beginning readers). I use this series of books for teaching English as a Second Language, but I feel they would be equally as valuable in the homeschool setting (grades 2 and 3). Overall, I recommend this book because it helps strengthen reading skills while also providing further education in science and social studies.