I came across a really fabulous set of readers a few weeks ago. My children each read a short French book aloud most days and this is the set my 8 year old has been working through. I’ve added them to the Readers page so you can see where they fit in in terms of difficulty level.

What makes these readers so interesting is not so much the content (although the stories are cute enough), but the questions available on the company’s web site at no charge. Some of the activities are worksheets in pdf form that can be downloaded and printed. Others are questions that your child can answer online and click through to see if they are correct. We skipped the questions about the author or illustrator that seemed to come completely out of left field, but spent extra time discussing the questions about the pictures. I found these to be especially helpful for vocabulary building because my daughter couldn’t just look up the words to use in the book. They weren’t always there. She had to use the pictures in the book to come up with the words to answer the questions. This freaked her out a bit at first, but she’s getting used to it.

The books themselves may be available at your local library. If not, you can buy them here in electronic format: http://www.dominiqueetcompagnie.com/catalogue/numerique.asp

The printed versions are available at Librairie du Centre: http://www.librairieducentre.com/RechercheAvance.aspx (choose À pas de loup in the collection drop down box)

The discussion questions that I mentioned can be found here (free!): http://www.dominiqueetcompagnie.com/pedagogie/activites_apdl.asp

There is also an accompanying workbook for the series (which I didn’t purchase, so can’t comment): http://www.dominiqueetcompagnie.com/catalogue/livre.asp?id_prd=2252

 

If you're not reading this post in your e-mail, sign up for updates right here and get your free guide to Getting Started Teaching French at Home: We never share your address, and you can unsubscribe at any time.