easy German reading books

[debinaustria]

Hi

I'm English living in Austria , ds aged 7 has just finished his 1st class in German speaking school here.This summer holiday I would like to keep his German reading up in the 9 weeks, so any advice on some books I could look out for on ebay or somewhere? Do they have similar schemes to Oxford Reading Tree etc?

tia

Deb

Very interesting thread, as my 5 year old dd is just starting to show an interest in reading...

We live in the UK and she has been learning to read in English during her current reception year.

While I want to encourage her reading (and writing) in German, I don't want to confuse/overwhelm her.... But then again German is so much easier to read than English, and she actually manages to decipher German words quite easily...

Any book ideas are very welcome. Are the Conni books the mini ones or are there specific 'leseanfaenger' Conni versions?

ooh great thread - I'm after some "learning to read" type books for the DC - DD1 does German at school, and I'd like to start it at home with the others - how can I get hold of some of these titles in the UK? Do I need to brush up my very rusty German, and see what Amazon.de is like? Or is there something simpler?

sz-shop.sueddeutsche.de/mediathek/shop/search/DetailSearchRH.do;jsessionid=4BFC058348B724F95B B67424288E4944.kafka:9009?author=Liane+Schneider

I'm not suggesting you buy them here, but these are the books in "Grossformat" in the series "Lesemaus" to give you an idea of what we're talking about. I wouldn't use them for total beginners because the lines of text are quite close together and there are around 8 lines per page. Once they are reading fluently, I'd try these but not in place of real easy readers.

The pixi versions are much smaller (I'd guess 15 x 15 cm and the text is obviously in much smaller print. They are the same books, just smaller. They're cheap and cheerful - 95 cents here so they're often handed out in party bags and so on.

Hi shrinkingviolet! I'm in Germany so I'll leave it to the German mums in the UK to answer that question. They'll know for sure.

SSSandy2, thanks a lot for that link!

I will look out for these 'Lesemaus' (and Leserabe) books when I'm in Germany during the summer. Yes, perhaps they are still a little tricky for my dd (5), but then she reads quite well in English and is pestering me to read to her in German... so I will give these books a try. At least German does not have so many exceptions and differing ways of pronouncing the same words....!

ShrinkingViolet, I have in the past been buying most of our German books and dvds at amazon.de (the shipping cost is now a flat, very reasonable rate), so I am not too familiar with UK sellers of German books. I know that Berlitz kids do a German 'course' for children, but perhaps some other UK mums might have more suggestions?

hi debinaustria
we also live in austria my daughter always prefered reading in englsh and still does.
i dont remember her following a reading scheme but she did always read german comics.
reading is a very tricky subject with children
hope you have a good summer