What to read over the summer? Reception > Y1

[Treats]

DD is just coming to the end of her Reception year and has made good progress with her reading. She's about to finish the Biff, Chip and Kipper light blue band and hopes to move onto the green band before term ends.

She's keen to read the books when they come home, but not so enthusiastic about reading other books outside the scheme - she still prefers me to read them to her. I thought the summer holidays (when she won't be getting books from school) would be a good time to encourage her to try other books. I've extracted a promise that we'll try one book a week during the holidays.

They will need to be new books that we don't already have so that she hasn't memorised them from my reading aloud. I think it would be nice to have a mixture of stuff that's a bit easier than she's already read (to build confidence) and a bit harder (to provide a challenge). And exciting stories so that she can actually see the point of reading and be motivated for its own sake.

I'm sure I can manage some of these from a wander around the library or bookshop, but I was hoping that some Mumsnetters might have some recommendations to start me off. Any thoughts?

Suggest page or chapter about, then you can keep the story cracking on but she does some reading too. Might give it a more holiday feel. Or she could pick a character and read their dialogue.

Now, I'm not up on ORT levels, so you might want to assess these at the library, but how about

Claude books
The Snake who came to stay
The Dragon Sitter
Me, the Queen and Christopher

Can you get her signed up for the Summer Reading Challenge at your local library, summerreadingchallenge.org.uk
It might help her keep focused and give her some incentive.

Hi Treats, I don't how good the children's section is in your local library but in the one we use they have a very good range of books that are sort of equivalent to the ORT sort of books, in that they are levelled and most are phonics based.

If you ask one of the librarians to give you some guidance, I can't recall the exact ones I mean but they have a picture of a frog on the front and are shelved in the younger readers section. Hop is the starting point, then Skip and Jump - after that they recommend the longer picture books.

HTH

I've just copied and pasted this from the library website which may help you to find something suitable:

*Early Readers

Children learning to read can borrow from a collection of great stories specifically chosen to suit their growing confidence with the written word. The Early Readers collection has 3 levels, represented by stripes on the spine of the books including:
•Beginner Reads (one stripe)
•Short Chapter books (2 stripes)
•Picture Books for older readers (3 stripes).

Please visit your local Warwickshire library for more details.*

That's great - thank you everyone. Yes, there's a summer reading challenge at our local library, so we'll get signed up for that. It has a great section of children's books although I don't think I've seen any indicators of reading levels like you're describing.

Thanks for the idea of doing pages/ chapters in turns. She's just brought The Cat in the Hat home from her school library and I think that will be perfect for giving that approach a go.

I would definitely agree with sharing the reading. The last thing you want is for her to see recreational reading as a chore, and when decoding is still hard work then it can be more of a slog than a pleasure. Keep up the reading aloud to her, long after she begins to read independently and share your own enthusiasm for stories.