Welcome to Free Guided Reading
Free Guided Reading is a site where schools can find age appropriate books for their students for free. I wrote it because I was surprised that despite there being millions of free books on the Internet, no-one seems to have collected them together in a way that teachers, students and parents can immediately use them.
I then fell in love with my Amazon Kindle and have read through so many classics that I thought, this is surely a wonderful tool to use in the classroom. I think that my school (Little London, Bucharest) is the first Primary school to have a complete guided reading scheme for Kindles. If you know of any other schools, please let me know, as I would love to share our experiences.
This site is designed for children and teachers to use the Kindles in the classrooms, then the students go home and use whatever reading device they like, such as another Kindle, their dad's ipad or a computer, to carry on using the books with an Amazon Kindle Reader application.
As I am using this within my classroom, it will grow and develop as my classes review and discuss a wider range of different books. We would love any other class to join in our discussions and offer their own views.
As you can see, the levels are organised like the colour of the rainbow - the red level would suit a Year 1 child, while violet is great for a child with a reading age of average 7th Grade child. The books are organised purely by reading ages and mixed in such a way that no-one knows what the next book might be, it may be poetry, a story or non-fiction. This is to give the student the widest experience possible of reading.
Remember - just like a real rainbow, our reading rainbow has no real beginning and no real end, it is the magic of the rainbow which makes the trip worthwhile.
Starter Readers
Free Guided Reading offers 7 different reading levels. If you are a new reader, then we would suggest you start on the Red Level. This is the start of our wonderful reading rainbow. If you are feeling a little more confident, and little braver, then look at the Orange level.
These levels are a mix of Kindle and ipad books, so that everyone gets to see both books with lots of different colours and also are able to download simple books which they can take and read in the back of a car or while coming home from school.
Reading is like a rainbow - every rainbow is magical and leads you to places you can only dream of.
Moving Readers
Free Guided Reading has a second set of levels, for the more confident readers. If you are now feeling like you want to read some tricker, longer books, then the books in the Yellow Level, or the Green Level would be perfect for you. These are normally for children who have been reading for a few years and are now wanting to read more exciting stories.
These books are available in a very wide range of different formats, as Free Guided Reading does not want to limit any reader to one type of device or another. We want our Rainbow Readers to be free to read on whatever device they like.
Remember, that reading is the joy of the journey, the end of the book can be considered the pot of gold waiting for you.
Flying Readers
Free Guided Reading want to offer every student in a primary school the same wonderful reading experiences I had when I was a child. The Flyers should look at the Blue Level, the Indigo Level and the Violet level. When a student is beyond the Violet Level, they will be able to consider themselves highly able readers. I have spent a lot of time finding all those classic books and getting them ready for a new excited audience.
Many of the books I have listed have long been forgotten, and some have hardly been read at all. They are all however special and all help to broaden a student's imagination and vocabulary. These books are meant to be shared and discussed.
The more people share and contribute to this site, the better the site will become.
Follow your own rainbow of dreams - read books which inspire you to follow those dreams. Share these books and dreams with everyone.