if you wanna improve vocab , you should use" smartfm" , kikutan , speed-learning or study from DVD with Japanese subtitles. for elementary students , smartfm , kikutan are useful . http://smart.fm/ kikutan series http://shop.alc.co.jp/cnt/other/kikutan/ you can buy it from amazon.co.jp and need to transfer it to US

There's hardly much point in that until you have mastered a great deal of Japanese sentence structure. Having said that, get "Pompoko". It's a cartoon movie about raccoons going to war with the humans to save their environment. There is a bit of political satire in it too. The movie is transcribed in comic form, and is the ideal reading material to improve your Japanese. There is even an English translation somewhere on the Net. The full title is: 平成狸の合戦 ポンポコ