What else can I do over the holidays with my very able reader?

[Runoutofideas]

Hi
DD1 is 7 years old. She has always been a very able reader for her age. She loves to do comprehension exercises for fun - I suppose in the same way that people enjoy sudoku or crosswords.....

She achieved a level 3 in her sats. I recently bought her some workbooks with comprehension exercises designed for the end of KS2 not KS1 and she still got all the answers correct on the level 4 exercises, completely independently.

She clearly has a skill with reading and interpreting the written word, but is there anything else I can do with her to encourage this, other than just keep encouraging her reading and giving her these workbooks whenever she asks for them? I am honestly not trying to be pushy, just trying to feed her interest. Thanks

Take her to the library and/or bookshop (second-hand or charity shop fine too) and just let her loose. Worked for me.

Could she read books and then discuss them with you? That sounds a bit more 'real' than comprehension workbooks, IYSWIM, and easier to achieve and tailor to her level.

Oh, and buy her a nice notebook or exercise book so she can start writing her own stories - much better for her in the long term than comprehension exercises, which are really very limited and unimaginative.

I loved reading as a child and used to spend hours in the library. I be there every day it was open. I also loved to write my own stories so maybe she could create a book of her own during the hols?

Go to museums and art galleries? They often have trails to be followed.

exexpat Cross post!

Libraries are doing their annual summer reading challenge.

The creative writing of her own could be a good idea, but she doesn't love it as much as doing these exercises. I don't want it to seem like hard work - it is the holidays after all, and I am just trying to follow her lead.

We have a library just round the corner, which she uses regularly - I may need to get them to order some books in for her as she has read so many of theirs.

Museum and art gallery trails would be right up her street. Thanks

Why not get her to write her own book or start a blog where she reviews the books she reads.
Write her own play scripts of the books she likes, make puppets and put on a performance.
Get new books from the library, read the beginning and then write how she thinks the story will progress then finish the book and compare the two.
Choose a topic or a period in history of interest research books written on that topic and review whether they contained accurate information or whether the information had been adapted or altered to fit the storyline better.
Write her own newspaper using books as the subjects for articles so Little Red Riding Hood would have a headline such as "Family saved after Father slays wolf"

If she is very able as a reader then there is no need to push her too much with it, just let her choose what to read and what to do.

I would personally encourage the creative writing if thats not her strongest point, often letting children write about what they want to write rather than what they are being asked to do at school makes all the difference.

My DS is in Y1 and a whole level lower on writing than reading. At home he writes amazing stories with fabulous descriptive words but at school struggles more if it is not something he wants to write about. I hope this will improve with maturity.

Are there any like minded,perhaps older,children that she can do these sorts of things with?

Reading as much as possible is loads better than workbooks, IMO, and as long as you check for content, an able reader should be able to move on to books for slightly older children. If the library is short, try charity shops for cheap books. Comprehension exercises will check for basic comprehension, but reading books in quantity will give you a feel for the written word like nothing else.

Reading out loud to her is also a brilliant way of expanding her reading horizons - books she wouldn't pick up to read herself (lots of wonderful classics) can be read to her and aside from the bonding experience will help you check her comprehension too, as she can ask about unfamiliar vocabulary, and you can ask her questions too: 'Why do you think she said that? How is he is feeling now? What do you think is going to happen next?'.

I was reading Watership Down to my 10-year-old and 14-year-old last night, and despite initial reluctance ('It's about RABBITS?!') they both seemed to enjoy it. Although they are both very able and prolific readers, neither of them have got very far with the book before, so I hope reading aloud is going to work.

In fact, I have a selection of books that I am reading aloud to each child in turn (I have 4DC) and the older ones who have had them read to them in the past sneak in to listen as I read them to the younger ones.

Get her to write book reviews- there is probably a website somewhere where she can publish and share with like minded children. Ah yes, I see a pp suggested that too!

Join Puffin Post. The magazine and free books are good, but the website is great - children can share their own work or comment on books or what other people have done. My DD has found it really inspiring.

Does she have any other interests? If so, you might be able to combine the two? We belong to the Woodland Trust who send out really good member packs that keep DD entertained for days - the last one included writing her own newspaper about spring, along with wordsearches etc. There might be something like that for whatever she's interested in too.

Subscribe to 'First News', kids newspaper. Then you can discuss current affairs over the breakfast table. Gives real purpose to reading and boosts general knowledge. All my kids love it.

Brilliant ideas - thank you so much everyone!

As well as encouraging her to write reviews, how about helping her to find her favourite authors online and looking at their websites then writing to them? I loved writing to authors as a teen and was thrilled when I received replies. Authors really enjoy messages from their readers too!

www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=271355&atc=7c36c81382a226929325a6cfa072d789&searchTerm=story

Lots of libraries across the country will be taking part in the 'Summer Reading Challenge' - you could get her signed up for that.

Make an Olympic scrapbook

My dd is the same & she loved the library challenge last yr, which involved reviewing the books she read. At the end of the summer there was a special award & activity day for all participants. £5 book voucher was a bonus too

Keep a holiday diary/scrapbook.

Let her write in it each day she wants to, put in postcards/leaflets from places you've visited.

We did this with my DDs and they are lovely to have now they are older.

Maybe try her on some poetry? (Or find a workbook that uses poems if she hasn't tried that already.) That will introduce lots of more challenging elements from a comprehension point of view, and if she enjoys a poem by a particular author in a workbook you can always encourage her to read other pieces by the same person. You could also suggest that she comes up with comprehension questions of her own for a fresh poem/passage, and then tries to answer them, which would be a little bit more creative and is actually quite a sophisticated exercise (since you need some sense of why and how comprehension questions are chosen and structured).

I was similar to your dd by the way - a very strong reader, who did lots of creative writing stuff on my own, but really enjoyed workbooks/exercises. I would add that I also v. much enjoyed formal "grammar" workbooks as well as the comprehension ones and I went on to be an academic who works on literature in other languages (so both a literature person and a linguist). If she hasn't done much formal grammar at school yet she might enjoy that.

She might also really enjoy learning a little bit of a foreign language in a structured way (e.g. French or Latin).

At 7 I read a lot of factual stuff as well as fiction so good idea above to encourage her in reading around any subject she finds interesting. At that age I really liked the sense of mastering the new 'language' involved in the jargon of a particular area (e.g. natural history).

I've just ordered 1001 books for children to read along with a reading diary.

As for the library challenge, it started here on Saturday and she would have completed this if I'd have gone backwards and forwards to the library twice today, 6 books, it's not really aimed at kids you need to tell to put that book down.

We hoping that 1001 books will inspire us to order more through the library which is very small, and we're going to tick off the ones we manage to read.