I often hear that teachers have recommended that children who are stronger readers start to challenge themselves by reading ‘classics’. This can lead to some misconceptions, and even alarm amongst their parents, but there is no need to panic. What your child’s English teacher really means is that as your child has become progressively fluent and comfortable within their ‘reading comfort zone’, they may need to start to challenge themselves a bit, move out of their comfort zone, and start to focus on the occasionally more demanding text. This does not mean they should now only be reading Shakespeare and Dickens (unless of course they really want to!).
Point them towards books which are well written, with slightly more varied and interesting vocabulary. These will maybe have a more challenging plot requiring inference about characters and situations, and necessitate applying their own knowledge to decipher the storyline. This will generally include more classical books but there are many modern authors who will also fall into the same bracket.
The following books are the sort of well-written traditional novels that would be good to pepper your child’s usual reading selection with, to the develop their breadth of vocabulary and more complex language skills;
Alice in Wonderland
The Secret Garden
Anne of Green Gables
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Wind in the Willows
The Hobbit
Little Women
Watership Down
Black Beauty
Swallows and Amazons
These are also the sort of books that would be interesting to discuss in interview situations, for those children who will be moving on to their senior schools in the next couple of years. It may also be worth looking initially for abridged versions of these books or maybe listen to the audiobook version alongside, or in advance of, reading the book. This is also the perfect occasion, however old your child, to do some paired reading, they read a chapter, then you read a chapter.
If you are looking for more modern classics with similar quality of writing, consider;
Journey to the River Sea
Life of Pi
Of Lions and Unicorns
The Water Horse
Mary Poppins
Stig of the Dump
Holes
Series of Unfortunate Events
The Boy at the Back of the Classroom
The One Dollar Horse
This is not a definitive list by any means. If you are interested in your child borrowing some of these titles we have most of them in the school library, or if you would like help finding something else, please do not hesitate to contact me on lje@barrowhills.org.
Mrs Emmett
Librarian
