First easy chapter books for younger children

[Eyesonstalks]

DD2 is 4. She starts Reception in September but is at quite a structured (school) nursery where they have taught them phonics and send home reading books etc. DD seems to have lapped it up and now moving on to stage 7 ORT books. I think she’s probably bright rather than gifted.

At the rate she’s going, I am guessing that she’ll be looking for easy chapter books around the time that she starts Reception. The difficulty is that her reading ability is starting to outstrip her vocabulary/4 year old understanding. This week she was reading about an alien invasion but we have deliberately turned the news off recently and she’s never heard the word invasion before.

Might anyone know of any first easy reading books that deal with simpler concepts, such that a younger child could access them too?

I have a vague recollection of reading on here about a link between very early reading, a lack of full understanding, and autism. This is actually something I am starting to wonder about, as she is also very good with number, and sometimes struggles a bit with emotional regulation, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions. She could just be a bright kid who’s been stuck inside the house while her nursery closed over multiple lockdowns.

We are doing the obvious stuff like trying to read her slightly more sophisticated books so as to give her access to new vocabulary. I feel guilty because when DD1 was this age we could spend hours every day in the library but younger kids get a bit of a raw deal on that front, don’t they?! Family life feels so bonkers at the moment that we are constantly running from pillar to post…

The princess in black series was a good one for DD. Lots of pictures and short chapters.

@OfstedOffred

My daughter is a free reader in Reception and get's short (60+ page) chapter books sent home multiple times a week so you shouldn't need to source these yourselves.

Is that at a state school?

Many state schools are interpreting the latest reading framework in a very black/white way and taking the view that books shouldnt be provided that are ahead of what's being covered in the classroom, phonics wise. Its perfectly possible OPs child, despite being able to read, will spend the first part of reception with pink & red books bring sent home.

@OfstedOffred No my daughter is at a selective private school. They assessed each child's reading and math ability within the first two weeks of school and set the work accordingly.

Schools interpreting things so narrowly I doing a massive disservice to children. Reading like everything else needs to be differentiated.

DD was a similarly early reader, and started reception this year. The most successful set of longer books we had at that transition stage were by Sally Rippin, two box sets called Hey Jack and Billy B Brown. They have chapters, and are in black and white with limited pictures but have larger writing and a simple vocabulary so are very manageable. Both she and her older brother still re-read too.

Otherwise, the Mr Men books are good too as having more complex language but simple stories they can understand, and not too much text on a page.

You can also get box sets of Usborne Readers which cover lots of the fairytales. They do a good job of gradually introducing some more complicated vocabulary as the levels increase but again the stories are fine from a comprehension perspective. We have this set by there are others www.books4people.co.uk/products/usborne-reading-library-50bksbxst?variant=31618927460467&currency=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5-WRBhCKARIsAAId9FluKbi6dkCteRMf80j-V5Mzzp4DrRQw6XlQOnbpiTxs39MIiGPEt0AaAoC1EALw_wcB . Again, these have been reread loads as DD likes fairytales.

We've also hit the library hard, the Little Gems mentioned above are good and there are loads of other early reader series. What I've found with DD compared to her older brother who started reading later is that her stamina has grown more slowly. Despite managing shorter lengths of longer books perfectly well for months now, she isn't reading longer chapter books to herself yet as she obviously finds it too tiring - she's spent a lot longer at the early reader stage.

Starting school also tired her so her progress actually slowed down as she was too tired to do much reading to herself after school for the first term.

The other thing I'd say is that her ability to answer comprehension questions lags her ability to read. I think it's about her ability to remember what she's read in a structured way rather than lack of understanding itself - she could do multiple choice questions, but struggled with open questions. At DD's school they don't limit based on phonics teaching but do based on a pretty rigid set of comprehension criteria (PM benchmarking) so her book band is a lot lower than she can read. Depending on how easy you find it to ask her questions and how cooperative she is, a comprehension workbook might be worth trying. If she's not writing yet, this one assumes verbal questions rather than them writing the answers Year 1 Comprehension Pupil Book: English KS1 (Ready, Steady, Practise!) amazon.co.uk/dp/0008244596/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_JSEM2C1YCNS0NFWY9YVQ]]

That’s brilliant- thanks so much.

Following for ideas. DD is 3 and only reading a few words, but has great comprehension - so likes me to read chapter books to her.

Struggling to find things that meet this need to absorb language and hear stories, but remain age appropriate. We just zoomed through Roald Dahl - Fantastic Mr Fox and George's Marvelous Medicine. She loved them, but I had to keep skipping/ amending bits that were not age appropriate.

@Gruffling I'd try Mrs Pepperpot, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf or Winnie the Witch. Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree is good for a younger age too, and you can get colour short books which are excerpts with a picture every page that really helped my DC get into the stories at a young age.

If you are keen on Roald Dahl, DD now 5 likes the Magic Finger.

Hi @Eyesonstalks. My dd is 13 now but was an early reader and was definitely on chapter books by the time she started reception (agree how sodding irritating those bloody fairy books were!).

I think a good thing to do at this age is to really expand understanding, comprehension and the beginnings of inference.

Look at the book. What does the front cover look like? What does dd think the book will be about just from looking at the front cover? Read the blurb on the back. Does it make you want to read the book?

When reading, get to the end of a chapter with her and then stop. What does she think will happen next? Who is her favourite character and why?

Is x character happy/sad? How do we know? What is the writer trying to get us to think about?

I used to read chapter books chapter and chapter about with my dd and we'd talk about all these kinds of things. Include some non-fiction too (Usborne are good for entry-level).

My dd reads widely and she finds things like reading comprehension/literary analysis pretty easy which I think is partially due to having always thought about these things as she was reading.

Sophie stories by Dick King Smith

lexile.com/parents-students/find-books-at-the-right-level/about-lexile-text-codes/#NC

www.goodandbeautiful.com/library/ <- large list of wholesome books. Most of the chapter books here shouldn't have disturbing/inappropriate content