Can anyone tell me about the difficulty of Dr Seuss books?

[ZombieComforts]

DS1 is in reception and read Green Eggs and Ham this morning. He did it without stopping, and without help and was delighted. I'd like to feed him some more Dr Seuss books (the rhythm really helped him get the expression right) but I don't want to give him anything too hard. Does anyone have a list of these by book band or by difficulty level? Or recommendations for what next?

I would say that The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish would be about the level of Green Eggs and Ham...

The Lorax and Oh the places you'll go are harder. But Dr Seuss is fantastic for fun and for language development. I'd just buy whatever you can and give them to him as appropriate. The Book people sell a set cheaply.
www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=138512

Yes, my 3.6 year old loves them, I actually hate them but he finds them really funny. The Cat in the Hat is a fave and the Sleep Book but its really long!

Green Eggs and Ham is orange band
Cat in a Hat is turquoise

The ones we've got have got 'grading' on the back for pre-readers, new readers and more confident readers.

Thanks mrz - that puts it into perspective.

I've always hated Dr. Seuss,but DD got Green Eggs out of the library and read it faultlessly. The first book she's ever read without help - so I've been converted ;)

Our library book has a list in the back according to difficulty. Green Eggs is for children just beginning to read on their own, (green level in Seuss speak), as are.....

Cat in the Hat / Comes Back
And to think I saw it on mulberry st.
Fox in socks
I can read with my eyes shut
i wish i had duck feet
marvin k, mooney
oh,say can you say
oh, the things you can think
ten apples on top
wacky wednesday.

Next level is for fluent readers (Seuss yellow level)

daisy head mayzie
did i ever tell you how lucky you are
dr.seuss' sleep book
horton hatches the egg
horton hears a who
grinch
if i ran the circus
if i ran the zoo
i had trouble getting to solla sollew
the lorax
oh, the places you'll go
scrambled eggs super
the sneetches
thidwick the big hearted moose
yertle the turtle.

Sorry about the capitals, I'm using a tiny keyboard and keep hitting the wrong key for shift, so I gave up.

Off to look at the book people now, thanks for that tip.....

Oh Goblin I have just looked at the link, they have all been sold.

We have started using these at home, DS 6yrs loves them and has made huge progress with them.

Actually I love them, I thought the Bike Ride was hillarious, simple minded as I am!

I've obviously got the only child that doesn't like them but he's very sensible and older than his years - I chuckle as he reads them, he just gets cross, and says it is just nonsense.

Can't recall which one it is but there's one where the fox is getting frustrated throughout, and my son is just in agreement with the fox throughout!!

my DS likes Hop on Pop, Great day for UP and Bears on Wheels.
He's on lilac/ pink band school books. OK with phoneticly spelt stuff but not so hot on sight reading.

If you are trying to work out the difficulty of any book there are a few ways to go about it. One is to get child to read any page - if more than five decoding errors then it will be too hard. Another way is to use the tool on Microsoft Word under the Review tab (ABC spelling and grammar, choose options) for the readability statistics. You have to type in at least a 100 word extract.
If I am choosing a book in a shop for a particular reader, I look at sentence length, and ( roughly) how many multi-syllable words there are per page, plus whether the style is complete sentences. (I dislike intensely books for young readers that do not adopt good grammar! )

Just give him books to read. If they are too hard, he will tell you, If they are too easy it doesn't matter.

Honestly, it's not an exact science. My ds used to try a book, then say "No that's a bigger boy one" so i would read it to him instead of him reading to me.

Oh seeker, bless your ds! That's such a cute thing to say, and such a positive way of recognising when something is a little bit too hard! :)

my dd loved FoxinSocks at that point, she would read it and shake with laughter.

What we sometimes did is we read one page, they read the other, through a slightly-hard book. That gives you a lot of flexibility in difficulty level.

Like Seeker, we never worried/worry about the appropriate level. If they feel like trying it, we/they try it. If it's too hard, they stop after a few pages or we do the reading.