Age appropriate readers. What do you think about this?

[MrRected]

DD is 6, she is a good reader - is on the last level of reading and will soon be an independent reader.

She brought home a school reader last night about Refugees. The story was about a little girl who had to flee her wartorn home after it was bombed and move into a tent city/refugee camp. The family are separated and the little girl is incredibly distressed. She does make a new friend in the concentration camp but then the family are accepted to move to Australia. On the day the are due to move her grandpa announces he will be staying as he wants to die in his homeland! DD could read the book and understood it but was a bit upset - particularly about the family being split up and Grandpa's decision to remain behind to die.

I was a bit gobsmacked really. Is this really what six year olds read in school readers these days? Should I talk to the teacher? Or would I seem like "that mother" if I did?

I'm afraid sometimes schools don't think.

DF, who's DD is the one truly G&T child I know, said she had to check reading books. They'd just send her DD up to the juniors and not vet what she was given.

Did you DF speak to the school and did they do anything about it or does she have to check everything that comes home?

That's ridiculous!

Australia would NEVER accept refugees.

(Sorry. I think your actual point is also very valid)

LOL Tortoise.

I think this is a sure fire way to KILL any love of reading. I am not sure what I can do about it though - other than tell her she doesn't have to read the home readers, which isn't really sending a good message.

MrD, are you in Australia, have I remembered that correctly?

I am Tortoise :)

DD1 chose her books from a separate lot for children in R and Yr1. She can't go to the library to get them. We didn't have any inappropriate ones. one she wasn't able to get the political side of about Nelson Mandela and she didn't like it because she couldn't get her head around black people being discriminated against. It just didn't feature in her happy little multicoloured world so we didn't read much of it as there were just too many questions raised for a 5 yr old.

I do think many schools don't think about it and it is left to the parents to check the books. DD1 actually takes in her own reading books in Yr1 as she has finished the boxes and this way everything is suitable.

I chatted to the teacher who was lovely about it and shocked by the story line. The books are old and from a time when the national curriculum (in Qld, Australia) was not in place. Five years ago, this would have been a book for a Grade 5 child (10/11 years old) and that would have been far more appropriate.

DD will be choosing library books from a list created by the librarian from next week onwards, so problem solved :-).

glad it is now being arranged so it won't happen again