Magazine for Your 3-5 Year Old

I've looked at several now for the 3-5 year-old reader.

Now, you have to remember what grade 3-5 year-olds are in:  Preschool and Kindergarten.

Do you remember what you learn in Kindergarten?

Letters and words like "the" and "dog".

So, magazines for 3-5 year-olds need to reflect the BEGINNER reader in story type and content.  Stories should deal with concrete physical items, not amorphic emotions like 'embarrassed'.  I found that out the hard way when I tried to read The Emperor's New Clothes to my friend's 4 year-old.  She kept asking what it meant to be 'cunning' and whatnot.

Now, I have worked on nation-wide education standards, so, those are my credentials as to why you should listen to my opinion.  I've auditioned several magazines in the 3-5 year-old age range and here's my unsolicited opinion on them:

Highlights High 5  Stories are usually of good length and content, though they add some confusion to the stories by naming children after states and cats after other animals (e.g. the cat's name in one of the stories is "Cow"- yeah).  You are also forced into Spanish immersion stories.  But the good news all of this can be fixed with a simple tool in your office:  THE PEN.  Scribble out the words that are confusing; substitute the language of your choice for the Spanish section (we like German here).   The magazine interests my daughter enough to pick up the magazine by herself and look through it.   All in all, I'd give this magazine 3.5 to 4 stars on the Irish Lass scale.

Click (by Cricket Magazine) This is HORRIBLE!  DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY.  The magazine feels cheap as far as paper quality goes and the "stories" inside...well, they have SEVEN (7) FULL PAGE STORIES WITH ONE SMALL PICTURE ON EACH PAGE.  The concepts are NOT age appropriate- things like Roman Numerals, volume comparisons, and converting from one set of units to another (e.g. English/American units to metric).  These children are lucky if they can COUNT to 20!  I'll honestly have to reevaluate this magazine when my child reaches 3rd/4th grade, which is when volume comparisons and conversions are first taught.  For the age group, I give this one a 1 out of 5 stars because give the most advanced child will be coming to YOU to explain what is meant by a conversion and will either not be able to grasp the concept or will have you explaining all of the math lessons in between to try to understand (and hopefully, they don't learn/remember incorrectly because THAT'S a teacher's worst nightmare).

Ranger Rick, Jr.  Now, this magazine is actually rated for slightly older children, but I found it's PERFECT for my beginner reader.  Every page has BIG pictures that fill the page.  Bright colors and it's mostly about nature and animals.  My daughter immediately told me about the panda's "baby" when she saw it.  There is only one long story (5 pages) that features the animals in that issue.  (fairly clever, I thought).  But what really sold me on this magazine was this:  every animal is LABELED, so when my daughter points repeatedly to a picture to have me say the word, I point to the word when I read it to her.  That way she understands that the word is the animal.  THAT is what you should be teaching in  beginning reading.  I give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars because I wish they had a game in the issue.