Books for y5 child with low comprehension level

[AprilShowerz]

I have a y5 who just has no interest in reading. They can read words accurately but often have no understanding of the meaning and therefore get little joy out of actual reading and it seems more mechanical than understanding what's going on.

Does anyone have any books that aren't too difficult in terms of vocabulary / sentence structure but will also engage without seeming 'babyish'?

Thanks!

Have a look at www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/where-do-i-start/
These are High-Low books, high interest but low ability , so aimed at readers where there is a mismatch between reading age and chronological age.

horrid henry
diary of a wimpy kid?
tom gates?
david walliams books?

They helped my reluctant reader (except wimpy kid which I don't like)

How "low" on the reading ability do you want to go?
Stuff my y4 comes to listen to when I reading to the 6 year old is Blyton, Dinosaur cove and beast quest/sea quest. My 6 year old can read these, but we tend to read some of it with him - we wouldn't let him loose with the whole book, as I dont think he gets it 100%.

A level up from that - how to train your Dragon, some of the Roald Dahl stuff, Oliver Reeve, Astrosaurs.
And a level up again: wimpy kid, tom gates.

Would fact books be of interest? Or would he listen to audio CDs? We currently have famous 5, just so stories, Dahl on CD. Graphic novels are also popular.

Good luck - part of it seems to be sparking their interest, so if there is sonething he likes, look for books on that.

The Bolds series by Julian Clary is a great easy reading series with a lot of humour and jokes on every page.
There are also lots of drawings and so it breaks up the text quite a lot which can help reluctant readers to keep going.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone on this thread. I have a year 4 with some additional needs. The suggestions and links on here are very useful. You have helped me a lot to hunt out yet more books to try him with.

Can I suggest Oxford owl online?

They are audio books so children can access comprehension and longer words with having to read - plus it can highlight the words as it 'reads'

Comics -
The Beano or The Phoenix.
Comic books/graphic novels - Asterix, Tin Tin etc. There are ones that are adaptions of popular books like Alex Rider.
Magazines -
Ones connected to interests he has - so Lego Magazines or Football or Pokemon or Gaming etc.

The website that Spanieleyes linked to mentions that the books have been "edited to a reading age of 7". Does this mean that we would need to buy the books from this website, because the copies we find in the library might not be quite so accessible? My lovely boy has pointed out a few that he would like to try. Ideally I would like to try to get them for free from the library.

Thank you

You would need to check that the library can provide books from the Barington Stokes publisher to make sure they are the correct ones. I think most of the books are originals but there might be different versions for more confident readers.

Thank you very much. I will have a look in the library.

I have a Y5 very reluctant reader, book that has just got her hooked is Wonder, easy read and very short chapters so doesn’t feel overwhelming. Because of her reluctance to read I signed her up to Mrs Wordsmith to increase her vocabulary, has done wonders and she manages to produce some excellent writing with quite extensive vocabulary. She does a couple of words a day, if she has a specific piece of writing at school she will look through to see which words she can use. It doesn’t replace reading but I feel it’s a good workaround when reading becomes a battle. Older DC is a complete bookworm, both read to from early age, one gets books, the other doesn’t.

Depending on how low level you need but my friends daughter has additional needs and enjoyed the biff and chip time chronicle books.

Someone has already suggested high/low books, and I agree that giving them books like this to read could help with encouraging them to read independently for pleasure. However, the central problem here is probably linked with having a poor vocabulary and background knowledge, and high/low books and so on won't actually help with this. So at the same time, you also need to do what you can to help them to build their vocabulary and knowledge level. Do you do educational stuff as a family, visit museums or science-y places, watch fun but educational documentaries or programs about history or nature or things happening around the world? These things help children to learn more content and develop a richer vocab, which are essential for them to make sense of what they are reading.

www.anholt.co.uk/seriously-silly-stories/Seriously silly stories books by Lawrence Anholt
The man who wore all his clothes by Allan Ahberg
www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Who-Wore-All-Clothes/dp/0744589959?tag=mumsnetforum-21

The boxcar children has very simple vocab but a sweet plot. It is a chapter book so not toobabyish.