really engaging chapter books for boy transitioning from biff and chip

[thaliablogs]

Would love some advice. We are plodding through ORT etc with my august-born year 1 ds (so still 5). He's happily reading orange level fluently with great expression and accents. He REALLY wants to read chapter books like his big sister, but the school are clearly going to walk him through all the levels before he can do so. SO I thought over the summer I might be able to find some beginner chapter books for him.

He's got a great imagination. Is obsessed by star wars but happy to read anything with a good story. Phonics is now secure so he can sound things out well if he doesn't immediately recognise the word. I think the ones dd started with - olga da polga etc - are prob a bit hard for him right now.

Any ideas very gratefully received!

How about the shorter Famous Five books (A lazy afternoon, for example)?Very little text on each page, colour illustrations. This is what got us through the transition to chapter books.

Fantastic Mr Fox and The Twits from Roald Dahl. (All Dahl is popular here: I've spent soo much time reading them, I bought all the CD's). Disclaimer: DS1 doesn't read these himself yet - Y1.

He has made a fairly good go at Ian Whybrow

But I'd be grateful for other suggestions!

Easy chapter books are any in the Corgi Pups series. He would also probably love 4 books by Allan Ahlberg about the Gaskitt family. They have lots of pictures but are divided into chapters!

Thanks! I'd never heard of ian whybrow, have just bought a couple of those, a couple of the corgi pups and a couple of the usborne early readers which I'd forgotten about but amazon clocked what I was looking for and suggested. Thanks so much, I can see at least a couple of these will work for him.

Re Roald dahl, dd has now read all of these (in year above but nearly 2 years older), but think he'll find them hard going to read to himself right now, great for us to read to him.

Horrid Henry. My DS is Y1. He loves these books.

The Usborne lift the flap non fiction books are popular with DS too. E.g See Under the Sea, Animals Around the World...

How to eat Fried Worms. Very short chapters and very engaging story about a bet about eating worms. My two were hooked.

My year 1 ds is absolutely loving the dinosaur cove books - his reading has come on lots since buying simply because he's reading more. He does love dinosaurs though! www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=183845&storeId=10001

Magic Treehouse series and Jack Stalwart. Agree with Horrid Henry too.

How about some Star Wars graphic novels? They feel more grown up, but not too many words per page.
Allan Ahlberg's Happy Families books are great, as are Usborne Beginner readers (non-fiction).

Mine is obsessed with Beast Quest at the moment and there are bloody MILLIONS of them BUT we are reading them to him at the moment as some of the vocab is too challenging. He's already trying to read bits on his own as he wants to know what happens so the hope is that he'll gradually start to read them independently.

Alex Smith's Claude books
Shirley Hughes Dixie O'Day series
Johnny Duddle's Jolly Rogers series (well two books so far)
Horrid Henry are v easy to read. I know some people hate them. However, in Henry's world miscreant are almost always found out and punished, and those that do good triumph.

The Magic Finger
Claude
The Dragon Sitter
The Snake who came to Stay

Have you got a local library where you can let him pick the books for himself? I borrowed The Snake who came to Stay and a couple of Michael Morpurgo early chapter books (Snug was one of them) that I thought looked great - good story, short chapters, not too many words per page - but DS (who is also 5, nearly 6) didn't like the look of them at all. He just really wants to read the same books as his big brother. Fortunately big brother likes Tintin!

DS is also an Aug born year 1 and exactly the same position re reading. He loves the Claude books as mentioned below.

Also the Easy Reader Beast Quest.

Horrid Henry ( easy reader editions)
Beast Quest
Various Ian Wybrow books

The Ali Sparkes SWITCH books are engaging, and the Dinosaur Cove books are probably accessible for him by the sound of it.

Horrid Henry early readers are a good transition - I had to put my predudice to one side.
Flat Stanley books good too.

You could try you read one page he reads the other as an intermin.

Doctor Seuss - Green Eggs and Ham is a particularly good one as the words are real, not made up, and there's a lot of repitition, but some of his other books are also great for practising phonics because of the made up words. DS had a collection of four Dr Seuss stories, started out reading green eggs, moved on to the ABC one and then the tongue twisters (oh say can you say), which he finds hilarious but they are tricky to say!

Oh and there are some Winnie the Witch first readers which are arranged like a short chapter book rather than the picture books, if he liked those.