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Beginning Reading selection suggestions for 7 year old boy
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This year I started out doing the Harriet Treadwell Reader Primer with my 7 year old son. He is definitely ready for it and seemed to like it. Then we moved onto the Reader 1 and he just isn’t into the stories and Mother Goose rhymes as much. One day, after much struggling with him, I took out a ‘twaddle’ book that a cousin had given him, one of those Step Into Reading Level 1 books about Super Heroes.
He read the whole thing, cover to cover, in less than 15 minutes. With a little help from me.
What should I do? I want him to enjoy reading and that piece of twaddle did it for him. It was interesting. It had action. It was fun and had a “story.” Now, even HE admited that all the pictures were distracting to him (he had to cover up the picture with his hand while he read the words) and I couldn’t stand the thought of it 🙂 But . . . he read it!
Should I look into more of the Step Into Reading selections? I really, really don’t want to. What about the I Can Read books? Are they just as bad? Originally, I wanted him to do the Pathway readers, but now I’m afraid that he might not like those either.
Any suggestions for beginning books, with action or similar, that a 7 year old boy might would like?
Thanks, Jenn
I don’t know how much help these will be, as they may be considered twaddle, but here’s my two cents:
(1) Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant. They are short chapter books about a boy and his dog. Not a lot of action and there are pictures on every page, but my 7yo ds likes them.
(2) Nate the Great mysteries by Marjorie Sharmat. Not a lot of action, but they are mysteries.
(3) Some of the I Can Read books are based on historical events. He may like those. I’m thinking of Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express, Sam the Minuteman, George the Drummer Boy, Long Way to a New Land, and titles like that. I think there are also some science titles.
(4) RobinP may correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think there’s a set of science and history books called the Step Up series. Of course, they’re long OOP, so they may be hard to find.
(5) My ds also likes Berenstain Bears. Stay away from those written as beginning readers, though. They’re not as good as the older ones. Depending on his ability, he may need a little help. My son seems to do fine. I don’t consider them twaddle, but they may be.
(6) In first grade we used the Little Bear series by Minarik and books by Arnold Lobel, especially Frog and Toad, as our readers.
HTH,
Karen
I’ll be watching this, too. My 6YO DS is at the same level. He can read the Beginning Reading books and loves action and good vs. evil stories.
I’ve run into this with my 5 year old DD as well. She loves to read, but is a bit of a perfectionist, and gets discouraged trying to read things much beyond a mid-second grade level. As much as I don’t like “twaddle”, I have purchased a handful of Henry and Mudge books for this very reason.
We also found Little Bear in a box of hand-me-down books from my mom, and she read me one story a night for 4 nights last week. I told her that the author wrote more Little Bear books, and she asked if she could read those as well.
I’ve heard great things about the Billy and Blaze books for boys, although I’ve never read them myself. I’ve been told that they are full of adventure, subtly reinforce good morals, and they are a lot less twaddly than the I Can Read series. However, they’re at a 3rd or 4th grade level. Maybe you could check one out of the library, read the first few chapters with him, and see if he’s interested? If so, you could take turns each reading a page or something, as his reading progresses.
April
Yes, Karen is right. Step Up Books are WONDERFUL for this stage of reading. The history books have titles such as
Meet Abraham Lincoln
Meet George Washington
Meet Andrew Jackson (and other “Meet…”
The Adventures of Lewis and Clark
My son loves the science series. Look for:
Animals (Insects, Fish, Reptiles…does contain evolultion) Do the Strangest Things
They also have Football Players Do Amazing Things and Magicians Do Amazing Things
They are all OOP but are worth seeking out. I have several duplicates because I pick them up whenever I find them.
These are older as well and OOP, but boys in my library really enjoy the Dan Frontier, Cowboy Sam and Jim Forest series. They are all graded readers with the beginning ones probably much too easy for your son, but they do get more difficult and are exciting.
Another (OOP…sorry…that’s what I do) wonderful series is Here Come the…series. Titles include:
Here Come the Bees, Here Come the Bears, Here Come the Deer, etc. They are all written by Alice E. Goudey, a wonderful science writer for children. The print is large with interesting narrative text. They are always checked out in my library.
Some of Robert McClung science books would be good for this age as well. I have Sphinx: The Story of a Caterpillar in front of me and it would be perfect. Avoid “The Last of…” books by him for reading at this level. More difficult than some of the others.
(Oh…and my 8yo read five Nate the Great books yesterday. He loves them.)
Oh, and some books by Clyde Robert Bulla are great as well. My oldest son read many of these at the point that he was ready for chapter books but was still building fluency. I’ve noticed that some reprints of his books have smaller print, but my older versions have large print which was less intimidating for him.
I think every boy is different. My ds7 enjoys mysteries and stories that involve animals. I tried Dan Frontier and Cowboy Sam and Pathway and he was bored with them. He has enjoyed some of the Step into Reading books. Don’t dismiss all of them. Some are historical as well. But stay away from the cartoon character readers. Well, I say that, but we also enjoy the Thomas train readers because ds loved Thomas train as a little boy and still likes them okay. We also enjoy the I Can Read series, which I think the Lobel series is part of, like Frog and Toad stories, Owl at Home, Mouse Soup. He loves all of these. He also likes Inspector Hopper. But, he also likes non-fiction readers for science, especially about animals. So we read a few pages from a non-fiction science and then a selection from a fiction reader. He also reads Bible everyday with the Rod and Staff Bible. He loves dinosuaurs, and he reads those books on his own. There was one book series we tried that almost killed his interest in reading – the Abeka first grade readers. Those were very dry and boring, just little short readings throughout which repeated the same words over and over again. So I would stay far away from readers like that.
Really at this level of reading, it is hard to stay away from twaddle 100%. But you are mostly teaching how to read now and the love of reading will come more later after they are better at being able to read.
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