More reading book suggestions please!

[Tgger]

Hi there. I'm looking for books for DS to read to himself/to us that he can manage without much help. His reading is at about ORT 7/8, Turquoise band and he gallops through books that interest him. I'm trying to find a variety of books to tempt him with.

I posted before about the Horrid Henry Early Readers. They are a bit tricky for him at the moment so something easier but of substance/inspiring/different/interesting. He enjoys the Magic Key ORT books but they are rather samey. Usborne reading is a little tricky (the chapter ones) so far. Any ideas welcome! Many thanks, of Magic Key it'll have to be! He's 5.5, Reception.

I found that age really difficult to cater for. There is such a massive leap between the picture books aimed at 3 - 5 year olds and the reading books for 7 - 9 year olds, and really very little inbetween.

I went with the Ladybird tales, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown and The Big Green Book by Robert Graves.

Otherwise, there are some picture books with longer text these days - I found a version of Paddington as a picture book, can't remember off the top of my head how tricky it is though.

If any of these are too much, you could try taking it in turns to read, so that the higher level of the book then becomes more accessible to him. (I was also going to recommend Roald Dahl's Esiotrot and The Giraffe, the pelly and me but then realised there's probably a fair few made up words in there that might be hard to read.)

Thanks- we'll keep trying different things, will try some of your suggestions. He likes Flat Stanley. We tried it a while ago when it was a bit hard for him and we read to him, but think he could have a good stab at it now- he did like it. Yes, I reckon we've got until he's 7 to make up our own thing- or until his reading and maturity are ready for the harder books.

Our library had a shelf of 'early readers' which helped to fill that gap, but I don't know if they're unusual in shelving them separately.

Other than that, I looked out for the old Ladybird Read it Yourself books in charity shops - I don't know the ORT levels but they come in various difficulties from the ultra basic one sentence per double page spread upwards. There are retellings of fairy tales but also some non fiction ones which might be more the thing.

One final thought - would the Ahlberg Happy Families books be the right sort of level? They're very fun.

Thanks. So far library has proved rather uninspiring. Again I think they have a lot more once he can read just that bit better- think he's "on the verge" of reading but isn't quite there and don't want to overwhelm him.

We've got quite a few of the ladybird books, they are very good and he likes them but think we've just about exhausted the ones at his level- will keep a look out in charity shops though, good idea.

Haven't heard of Ahlberg so again will have a look. Thanks again.

The Ahlberg books are great - this is the series. They're fun to read out loud too as they've got lots of good pictures.

Happy families ones are great for this stage. My year 1 ds is at the same stage and loving reading them as well as dk readers we got from amazon and the new adventures of the wishing chair that aren't written by Blyton but have her name on.

Thanks, those look fab! Will get ordering :-).

DD likes the I Can Read books. She's about Level 2 (which is Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad, for example). They cost about £2.50.

p.s. Some of them come up as out of print on Amazon (UK), but you can get them through Book Depository.
e.g. this one

If you have some idea of what you're after, you can order from the library. When DS was at that nearly independent stage, he liked the Hopscotch myths and Hopscotch histories series. DK readers were good too and what about the Usborne Farmyard Tales? They have a sentence at the top for DC to read, then slightly more complex ones at bottom of page for parent to read, Usborne Beginners are simpler than the Young Reading ones too. Although it's a bit more of a challenge to find things for this stage, we found there was plenty out there (we are lucky with our local library, as well as indulging on Amazon!)

Thanks! Yes, I have reserved some Happy Families from the library now- got to keep the Amazon bill down a bit . Will look out for the others suggested too. So helpful to have the suggestions. Thanks again.

I'd forgotten the Farmyard Tales. As wearymum says, they're good in that you get two stories for the price of one - a very basic sentence at the top, and longer text below. Nice in that the dc can easily follow the story from the pictures plus the basic text. (Also helpful if you have an tractor & animal loving dd as I did!)