1st Grade Books To Add To Your Collection
Are you looking for the best books for first graders? We have the ultimate book list for 1st grade read alouds for different skills and topics. You will want to bookmark this blog post so that you can pull up the list! This list of books is not focused on reading level, but on different skills, types of books, and first grade interest. Make sure to add these to your classroom library! If you do not have them, make sure to take a trip to your school library or your local library!
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Favorite Books For Teaching First Grade Reading Comprehension Skills
This blog post will be divided into different parts, but first up are the different books for teaching reading comprehension skills!
One picture book that I love to use for many different reading comprehension skills is The Panda Problem. The Panda Problem is a great picture book for teaching character, setting, problem and solution, point of view, making predictions, and retelling a story.
Favorite Books For Teaching Main Character
These picture books are my go-to for teaching main character and character traits because the main characters are so strong, with a variety of different character traits.
Why do I love Wodney Wat? Some of our young readers can be seen in Wodney Wat, with his lisp and sweet nature. He sticks up for himself to Camilla Capybara, who is a bully who makes fun of him and how he talks. These are two very different characters so you can compare and contrast their character traits and note how Wodney Wat changes throughout the story.
I love how A Bad Case Of Stripes easily leads to a discussion of inside and outside traits.
The Recess Queen is the perfect read for teaching character traits and how characters change over time.
4. Love, Z
This is a heartwarming story of a robot trying to figure out what love is. I love using this for character traits because it shows perseverance and strength.
I love the Mr. Panda series of children’s books. In this book, Mr. Panda is giving away donuts, but no one says please or thank you! Mr. panda shows different character traits throughout this story such as perseverance, patience, and compassionate.
The Pig series is another fun one to read with young learners. Pig has many negative character traits in this text such as: dirty, slob, messy, and selfish. Students will enjoy the bright pictures and the silly things Pig does.
Check out our full list of books for teaching main character here.
You can use any of these texts with our main character reading unit.
Favorite Books For Teaching Story Elements
When teaching all the story elements (character, setting, problem, and solution), these books are my favorite because they show the clear character, setting, problem, and solution which is what readers, specifically new readers, need when learning different reading comprehension skills.
In this classic picture book, Ira is excited to have a sleepover with his neighbor next door. However, his sister teases him for wanting to take his teddy bear to the sleepover. So, Ira is faced with the problem of what to do… Go to the sleepover without his teddy bear or take him in fear of being teased like his sister suggested.
2. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
This book is also on my list for teaching context clues. It is a great book for teaching multiple things. This book is about Sylvester, a donkey, who makes a wish and turns into a rock! Talk about a problem! Young readers love this book and get interested to find out how Sylvester will solve his problem!
We love all books by Mo Willems over here! I love using Waiting Is Not Easy to teach story elements because there are 2 very clear characters with different character traits. Also, the problem in this story is not the typical story you think of with other books (like what’s wrong in the story). Instead the problem is Gerald’s impatience with Piggie and her big surprise.
Tacky The Penguin is a little bit quirky compared to the other penguins. This is a fun story students will enjoy with clear characters, setting, problem, and solution which makes it perfect for teaching story elements.
Bailey is sad because he wants to go camping, like his brother and sister for Bunny Scouts. However, Bailey is too young. His mama suggests they do all the camping things at home!
Check out our full list of books for teaching story elements here.
You can use any of these texts with our story elements reading unit!
Favorite Books For Teaching Predictions
1. What If Everybody Did That?
This book is also perfect for Earth Day, so set it aside for then too! I like using this book for predictions because you can pause the story and make predictions about what will happen if the character does do the action.
This is the perfect book for teaching predictions! Students love to predict what Duncan will draw and color with certain crayon colors.
3. If You Give A Cat A Cupcake
The “If You Give A…” series is perfect for making predictions. Students can make the prediction of what will happen before they turn the page.
Check out our full list of books for teaching students to make predictions here.
You can use any of these texts with our making predictions reading unit.
Favorite Books For Teaching Retell And Sequencing
In this picture book, all the farm animals are ready for sleep! What wakes them up though? A flea’s sneeze! Students will love retelling this story.
The Tortoise And The Hare is a short, simple story with clear characters, setting, problem and solution, and central message which makes it a great text for teaching retell.
3. Ribbit
In Ribbit, there’s a pig who hangs out by the frogs and ribbits! The frogs are confused and finally learn that the pig wants some friends! This book is adorable, but also great for teaching students to retell because they can easily explain the characters, setting, problem, and solution and put the plot in a sequential order.
4. Mouse Count
Mouse Count is about a hungry snake who fills up a jar with sleeping mice. However, one of the mice wakes up and tells the snake he missed a mouse. The greedy snake goes to find the mouse and the mice work together to get out of the jar. This is a short story that is great for retelling because of the clear characters and plot.
5. Nightsong
Nightsong is about a young bat who must learn to fly in the night. Chiro, the young bat, is scared because it is dark in the night and he cannot see in the night. His mom tells him to use his good sense to fly in the night. This book is also great for teaching context clues.
You can use any of these texts with our retelling reading unit.
Favorite Books For Teaching Context Clues
This text, Baloney (Henry P.) is my favorite for teaching context clues. I typically use this book on the first day as the introductory lesson during reader’s workshop. In the book, Henry tells a very tall tale about why he is late for school again. What is fun about this book is there are 20 different Earth languages included. Students will have to use their schema to determine these unknown words.
The Spider and the Fly has interesting illustrations and lots of great vocabulary for students to use context clues. Some of the words include appetite, cunning, parlor, etc. Your students will definitely enjoy this tale.
3. Pinduli
This text, Pinduli, is about a hyena who just wants to disappear. Not only are the illustrations beautiful, but the text is filled with full vocabulary. Some words to use are: waterhole, erupted, trotted, exquisite, etc.
Truthfully, I think you could choose any text by Patricia Polacco to use for teaching context clues. All of her books are filled with such rich vocabulary. This book is about Trisha, who could paint and draw beautifully, but had a difficult time with reading and writing. However, she had one very special teacher who helped her and recognized her dyslexia.
The Word Collector is about a boy, Jerome, who collects words. Each page shows the different ways he finds these words and also the words he is collecting. This is a fun read to show students that they can find unknown words everywhere!
You can use any of these texts with our context clues reading unit.
Favorite Nonfiction Books For First Graders
1. Fly Guy Presents
My first grade students always loved the Fly Guy nonfiction series. There are so many to choose from now too! You will definitely find one that someone in your class is interested in from this list! These are high-quality books that your young readers will enjoy reading, especially with the real life photographs.
- Fly Guy Presents Weather
- Fly Guy Presents The White House
- Fly Guy Presents Space
- Fly Guy Presents Dinosaurs
- Fly Guy Presents Firefighters
- Fly Guy Presents Weird Animals
- Fly Guy Presents Snakes
- Fly Guy Presents Sharks
- Fly Guy Presents Castles
- Fly Guy Presents Police Officers
- Fly Guy Presents Garbage And Recycling
- Fly Guy Presents Insects
- Fly Guy Presents Bats
- Fly Guy Presents Dogs
- Fly Guy Presents Monster Trucks
2. National Geographic Kids Readers
Each nonfiction book from National Geographic has beautiful photographs and bright illustrations. I also like how these nonfiction texts are numbered differently for different leveled readers. Side note: Level books are not always correct “levels”. Just because it’s a number 1 (like the ones I’ve listed below) does not mean it is for early readers.
3. Who Would Win? Series
This nonfiction text series is great for teaching compare and contrast because they are typically comparing two different animals. The whole series is full of great illustrations or real photographs and a lot of facts. Students love to keep reading so they can find out who would actually win! Some of the books are two animals that are more alike and some are completely opposite like a blue whale against a mosquito!
- Who Would Win? Blue Whale Vs. Mosquito
- Who Would Win? Whale Vs. Giant Squid
- Who Would Win? Lion Vs. Tiger
- Who Would Win? Lobster Vs. Crab
- Who Would Win? Polar Bear Vs. Grizzly Bear
Check out our full list of nonfiction series here.
You can use any of these texts with our nonfiction reading unit.
Our Favorite Early Chapter Books
Early chapter books still have plenty of illustrations, usually on every page. These are chapter books first grade students typically start reading in the middle of the school year. If they aren’t reading them yet, then having an adult read them aloud is still great for exposure.
First Grade Books For Teaching New Sight Words
1. Sight Word Readers: Learning The First 50 Words In A Snap
I have used these books with both my children. Seeing the sight word in repetition helped my kids remember the word. Each book has 2 sight words in the short story. My youngest son became more confident in his reading with these books.
This is another set of books that my own children have used to learn to read. They also really enjoyed these short stories and the repetition helped them build mastery and confidence in their reading.
Our Favorite Graphic Novels For First Grade
These graphic novels are fun for first graders to read. You need to teach your students how to read the dialogue in the speech bubbles because knowing the correct order of who is speaking is critical to understanding the story. Graphic novels might be the right books for your reluctant readers.
1. Pizza And Taco Series
- Who’s The Best?
- Best Party Ever!
- Super Awesome Comic!
- Too Cool For School
- Rock Out!
- Dare To Be Scared
- Wrestling Mania
2. Narwhal And Jelly
This series is a story of a sweet friendship between Narwhal and his best friend Jelly. Narwhal meets his new friend Jelly in the first book and then the rest of the series follows their fun friendship.
- Narwhal: Unicorn Of The Sea
- Super Narwhal And Jelly Jolt
- Peanut Butter and Jelly
- Narwhal’s Otter Friend
- Happy Narwhalidays
- Narwhal’s School Of Awesomeness
- Narwhalicorn and Jelly
- A Super Scary Narwhalloween
- Narwhal’s Sweet Tooth
3. Baloney And Friends
This is an easy reader graphic novel series. Baloney is the star of his book and has so much fun with his friends Peanut, Bizz, and Krabbit.
4. Magic Treehouse Graphic Novels
My first graders always loved listening to me read Magic Tree House during story time after recess. It was a great way for my students to calm their bodies after running around for twenty minutes at recess. I have also been reading Magic Tree House at home with my own 1st grade child and he likes the graphic novels as well.
- Dinosaurs Before Dark
- The Knight At Dawn
- Mummies In The Morning
- Pirates Past Noon
- Night Of The Ninja
- Afternoon On The Amazon
- Sunset Of The Sabertooth
Favorite Books For Back To School
Penelope Rex is a young girl, a dinosaur, who keeps eating her classmates! I love using this book during the first week of school because it will bring on all the laughs!
I think most teachers read First Day Jitters on the first day of school and why wouldn’t they? It’s a cute, funny story about a teacher (who you think is the student) who is nervous about going back to school! The end of the story always gets lots of laughs. It’s a delightful must-read for the back to school season.
3. How Do Dinosaurs Go To School?
I love all of the “How Do Dinosaurs…” books and I bet they’re very popular in your classroom too! How Do Dinosaurs Go To School? is fun for the first week of school because it says all the things that little dinosaurs do on the first day of school.
4. The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer
We always want to talk about summer break when we go back to school. I love how this book leads to some interesting discussion about what kids did over summer break!
Check out this list of back to school read alouds here.
I hope you enjoyed this wide variety of 1st grade reading books! There are many great read-aloud choices! Which one is your favorite?
