Reading

On this page you will find resources for teaching your kids to read and to support them as they continue to learn and develop over the years. Printables, tips, techniques, links to resources, book lists, and more. All these tips and resources come from my experience as a preschool and elementary teacher trained in Early Reading Intervention, plus my experience as a homeschool mom of five for the last 13+ years.

Play Your Way to Reading

A play-based literacy program for PreK-2nd graders.

Teach your child to read through play!

Read these blog posts:

Seven Ways to use Books as Homeschool Curriculum

One of the lies that a lot of homeschool parents believe is that they need to purchase a curriculum to teach a subject. While curriculum can be a helpful tool, it definitely isn’t always a necessary one! I’m…

How to Choose Books for Your Homeschool

Books are an incredibly important part of our homeschool – in fact, they are central to just about every part of our homeschool! But how do you choose books for your homeschool? What should you look for and…

Teaching US Presidents: resources and books

My kids and I have been studying the U.S. Presidents in our homeschool (which is a pretty common thing around Presidents’ Day ;) and I thought it would be helpful to round up the resources that we’ve been…

Five Ways to Improve Reading comprehension

Once your kids learn how to read, you want to make sure that they aren’t just reading the words, but that they actually understand what’s happening in the story. This is called reading comprehension. If your kids can…

How to Build a Homeschool Library (and on budget!)

Building a home library doesn’t have to break your budget. I’ve built our library over years and years of teaching in the classroom and homeschooling. We buy most of our books used; I rarely leave a thrift store…

Teaching Kids Letters and Sounds

I’ve spent a LOT of time over the last 20 years teaching kids letters and sounds. Between my time teaching in the classroom and now homeschooling my own kids, I’ve picked up many different ways for kids to…

Teach Kids How to Read: the best resources, curriculum, and tips for parents

Teaching kids how to read can feel overwhelming. Whether you are homeschooling and the responsibility is solely on you or if your child is in school but needs extra support, it can feel like a lot – especially…

Create a Story Basket Learning Invitation

In my days as a kindergarten and preschool teacher, one of the things I loved was creating learning centers for my students. When I started homeschooling my kids, I wanted to bring this concept into our home. So…

Book Lists:

Thanksgiving picture books

Thanksgiving Picture Books

Grab your FREE Thanksgiving book list – plus two FREE language arts lessons for the whole family! You will be subscribed to the Silo & Sage email list, but can unsubscribe anytime. For more details, review our Privacy Policy. Subscribe…

thanksgiving books

35+ Summer Books for Kids: Free Printable List

Grab your FREE list of 35+ Summer books for kids – chapter and picture books! You will be subscribed to the Silo & Sage email list, but can unsubscribe anytime. For more details, review our Privacy Policy. Subscribe Loading… Thank…

books about bees for kids

Books about Bees for Kids with free printable

The other day, my eight-year-old and I were out in the garden, and there were bumble bees buzzing all around us. We started talking about bees and why we need them. So obviously, being the bookish homeschooling mom…

Best Beginner Chapter Books for Early Readers

As a former elementary teacher and homeschool mom of five, I’ve seen many beginner chapter books – and honestly, there are a lot of awful ones. A lot of early chapter books are kind of boring, have terrible…

engineering books for kids K-12

Engineering Books for Kids of All Ages

There are so many different STEM and engineering books for kids out there right now. I took weeks to find the best ones for our family, and as I went down the rabbit hole, I gathered them all…

Solar Eclipse Books and Activities

If you’re looking for solar eclipse books and activities, plus printables, I’ve got a bunch of good ones for you! I put together a FREE mini-unit on the solar eclipse for you to print, a book list, and…

St Patrick’s Day Activities

I love to incorporate fun little unit studies and on holidays, and these St. Patrick’s Day activities are the perfect way to celebrate, even if you don’t have any Irish in your ancestry. Whether you use these activities…

Books to Teach Money and Entrepreneurship

We are a book family, so anytime we want to learn about a topic, my first thought is: what books can I find about this topic? This year, we are learning a lot about money and entrepreneurship, so…

Gardening Books for Kids

One of the best things about homeschooling is that you can use your real life experiences to teach your kids – no special curriculum required! Most of our learning is centered around books in our home, and we…

Easter Books and Baskets

In our house, we celebrate Easter as the Resurrection of Jesus, but we also like to celebrate the fun of Easter baskets! We keep baskets pretty simple, as we don’t want the focus to be on the gifts….

Advent Books and Resources

As we come into the Advent season, our family uses this time to turn our hearts to Jesus and celebrating the anticipation of His arrival. And we also like to have fun with Christmas traditions and holiday fun!…

Best Fall Books for Kids

Fall is my favorite season! I like to tuck seasonal books away for most of the year and then pull them out in the appropriate season. I just pulled out our fall books and thought I’d share the…

More Books We Love:

Books we use in our homeschool

Nature Reference Books

Nature Picture Books

Chapter Books

Picture Books

Our favorite non-fiction books.

Check out these resources:

Hands-on games, resources, and learning tools I recommend

Printables

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