beast quest books

[lunar1]

Does anyone know round about what level they are. Ds1 is on white band at the moment but is complaining about how dull the school books are. Would he be able to read beast quest at this level?

These school readers are so dull and at 60+ pages he's beginning to think reading is the most boring thing on earth!

They are at Year 4 and 5 levels - not sure what that translates to in terms of band colours.

If he's reading them competently, then go for it! We've just bought series 2 & 3.

Dinosaur Cove is another similar series, and Ali Sparkes SWITCH books are fab too.

Let him read beast quest books, if he wants. If they're too hard, you could read them with/to him.

Part of reading is working out the word from the context, so a book that's a tiny bit too advanced can be a good thing, provided he is not discouraged.

My DS amazed me with his reading ability when he moved from the boring school books to books he actually enjoyed.

I'm surprised the beast quest books are year 4 and 5. DS started reading them in year 2, I am fairly sure, although he did continue to read them for a couple of years.

My ds used to read beast quest when he was around lime, but I don't think it was difficult to read. Story is very simple, each chapters are short, words aren't so difficult and have large letters.
According to this site, book level varies, from 4.3 ~ 5.4 ( according to site, book level 4.3 means 4th year of school , 3rd month of school year.)

www.arbookfind.co.uk/default.aspx

If he wants to read, why not? I don't think level really matters what children read for pleasure as long as they enjoy it.

Give him one and find out!

Nothing bad happens if they read a book that's a bit too easy or a bit too difficult.

A lot too difficult is a problem, but they won't be.

Irvine - absolutely - nail on the head there. I'm doing my dissertation on reading for pleasure and interest in the reading material is the top priority for engagement.

My DS has just moved from white to lime level, and can manage the Beast Quest books He is really enjoying the Dinosaur Cove books at the moment though, which are a bit shorter and I think easier to read, so would recommend these as a good starting set if he has any interest in dinosaurs.

I found my 8 year old loved them and used them as a springboard between school books and wider reading. He didn't read many but they really helped his confidence. My 6 year old has just finished Ferno the Fire Dragon and is excited about starting Sepron.

DS is in year 2, he's reading Brown books and loves these and Seaquest.

You might want to consider the techniques I used at school when a TA:

When reading harder books with a child, get him to point to words as he goes along. If he knows the word, or can sound it out, he can say it. If he doesn't know the word, he can hover his finger over it, and YOU say the word for him. Don't stop to analyse or discuss the word at this stage, but try and keep the 'flow' of reading going. Review difficulties at the end, if you wish to. This way, he has the satisfaction of reading more difficult books, without the fear of getting 'stuck' on words.

Don't know about the levels question, but Beast Quest also do a few easy reader books - shorter stories and less text - so you could try those first if you're not sure. DS is purple level and is managing the easy reader ones okay, but I think he'd struggle with the longer books - his reading isn't fluent enough to be able to concentrate on both words and plot in a book of that length.

When my ds started reading books with more challenging words, we bought him a electronic dictionary. It's a lot easier and quicker to look up new words than normal dictionary, so he didn't mind using it while reading a book. Also if he didn't quite get the meaning of a word, he can quickly switch to thesaurus function to find words with similar meaning, so he can understand what it means.

I think the first few series of Beast Quest are described on the book as suitable for 6+, and the later series are 7+. Agreevwith suggestion of reading them with your child, maybe a page each in turn.

Thank you everyone. I got the first two books while I was out yesterday. I showed them to him after school and put them in his book shelf for us to look at this weekend. He gets 30 mins to play in peace in his bedroom every night while I put his younger brother to bed.

I found him in bed over half way through it. He managed the full thing and loved it. The best thing is he could tell me loads of details about the story and characters. His comprehension has always been slightly behind his reading level.

He's in year two so doing pretty well I think. I listened to him read the last few chapters and he needed very little help.