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My DD's teacher recommended her to read HP.DD6 is in 2ndgrade and her guided reading level is R in the recent testing. Though she read several over 200 pages books (like Roald Dahl books),but none with so many charecters in the story plot. My worry is that she may lose the plot midway. I know she can always read at a later date, but I do not want to disappoint her and help her if possible.

Any body had been in the same situation? I know there are lot of kids in the forum who read HP at that age or more complex plots. As a parent how can we help her to get through.......

If she's at R Harry Potter shouldn't be a problem for her. You might want to let her watch the movie first, if she hasn't seen it. Or, have her read the book out loud to you, a chapter a time.

I am not familiar with the reading level mentioned. This may sound silly but having books that are light enough to read and the printing the right size helped for us. I think we had only hard backs as options when we were reading them and they got heavy and awkward to manipulate.

Reading on the kindle (or another ereader) helps... Lightweight, and they don't see how big the book is and get discouraged.

More than reading level, I'd be concerned about capacity to cope with scary things. By the end of book 7 lots of likable characters are dead, and it gets pretty existential, with the line between life and death rather blurred.

They're not that well written on the level of prose, but the plots are gripping, and we found that once our kid was in, he wanted to finish; you might want to be sure that's OK with you before you let her start.

DeeDee

R is later part of 4th and early 5th grade.

thanks epoh

DeeDee I agree with you. We read them as they came out so DD aged before the next ones came. I am not sure what I would do now as they are pretty engaging. My DD who was much older when the last one came out sobbed pretty hard when one of the characters was killed. I was surprised how touched she was by that particular character as there had been others killed in previous books....

deedee

death is definitely a concern. plan to stop after book 1
she sobbed a lot after reading matilda

Our son read the books at six. We also planned for him to stop after the first one but he was determined to keep going, so if you let her start you need to be prepared for that. He often goes back to the books and reads his favourite or reads the whole series again or reads them in backwards order.

I'm "old" enough to have waited for all but the first book to come out before I could read them, so the the timing of the books was much different than it would be for your DD.

I started reading the books in K, and I know I got many of the names of characters and spells horribly wrong the first few times I read the books, but it was always nice to see how much more I understood each time. Especially when I got older and was able to make connections to mythology, I found out there is much in those books to discover at any age. Though I could always read the words, what I could grasp changed over time. I think it was also helpful to experience the scary stuff through a book that could be put down for a while rather than facing it in real life -- it gave me more time to think about what the sacrifices meant and how the search for power can change a person.

If you haven't already, you could maybe read the books at the same time as her so you have an idea of when tough issues may pop up. Or you can alternate reading each other chapters so she can ask questions as you go along and draw the process out a bit.

You might wany to try a few shorter transitional books books together first such as Phantom Tollbooth, The Giver or A Wrinkle in Time.

Best wishes
Grinity

Mine couldn't handle scary or sad until the age of 12. Needless to say we had a difficult time with books and movies. She finally took on Harry Potter at 12 and devoured the series.

My ds started the serious at 6- reading is favorite thing and does it constantly. My dd who is not a big reader started it this year at 7. So your dd should be fine.

I think that age is fine as long as your child can handle different scenarios and emotions. I do agree the books and movies get a lot more adult in nature the closer you get to the end. Maybe read a portion of the first one with her to make sure she isn't getting overwhelmed? My son and I read the first one aloud with each other at 4 1/2 but after that he continued to read a few of them over K and 1st. He hasn't finished them, or the movies as he's followed other books of greater interest the last few years.
Good luck with your decision!

I'm reading the series to my own DD6 as bedtime reading. We're on our third one right now. We just finished watching the full movie series this past weekend, but she has always been reading behind what she has seen on the screen. This means she has already been exposed to the scary bits, so she knows how she'll handle it, and she already knows how it'll turn out when we read it.

One huge advantage to doing it this way is she notices how different the book experience is from the movie, which reinforces how books are superior to movies... not a bad lesson to learn at such an early age.

I occasionally stop reading to ask her questions about how she's following along. It's pretty clear that she's not thinking deeply about the reading, because she's six, so she's just sort of allowing the story to lead her along... which is fine. But it's also clear that she's keeping up with the story and the characters, so no worries there.

We waited until DD was 8.
She's a little bit on the sensitive side, and we had some sadness and tears with books 6 and 7. She also likes to read right before she goes to bed, so I was a little concerned about bad dreams.

She read them all in one summer. Once they get started with this series, they go go go. She would not have wanted to stop with the early books.

Six might be a little young to handle the later books, but I guess it really depends on the child.

My DD7 finished HP before she turned 7. She read Percy Jackson series and was bored after that and turned to HP. She was not too keen on reading classics like a tale of 2 cities, etc...

She was not intimidated by all those scary scenario (I was afraid of that in book 5 and 6). Recommended does not mean that you have to but if your DD's school has AR (accelerated reading) program, those HP books will earn plenty of AR point :-)

Your DD may start with Percy Jackson series which is a great read as well.

My older son has tried and tried to get into them but he is a Percy Jackson fan and never has been able to get into HP although he has watched the movies.

My younger son will probably start in on them this summer at 7 and a half (he has seen some but not all of the movies).

My husband and I LOVED the books and it is disappointing that the boys haven't loved it as much as we did. Well we don't know if ds7 will be as thrilled as we were yet.

My DD8 (who is a huge Percy Jackson fan) is just now reading the HP books. She's seen all of the movies, but it took her longer than I'd have expected to get around to reading the books.

We are planning to read the first book during her holidays, i was thinking she could do some activities related to book...
coat of arms of school and school mascot are couple of them, her school has only school mascot, i do not know whether they have coat of arms....
any suggestions on fun activities related to those books (no video games please)... appreciate your suggesions

There is a Harry Potter cookbook that has recipes for some of the treats mentioned in the book. There is also the book about the animals... Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them, I think it's called. You could have her come up with her own beasts/plants and draw them and come up with what their magical properties are, etc.

DD8.5 has read numbers 1 and 2. We will not allow her to read beyond that yet because she is super sensitive and will have great difficulty dealing with the scary/sad things that start happening in book 3. She has only seen the movie of book 1 and she is not interested in seeing the other ones because she liked the book so much better than the first movie she thinks they are a waste of time. (I'm sure this attitude will change with time.) Yes, some of her friends think she is weird because she hasn't read them all, but she rightfully blames me as the reason she hasn't and they seem to be ok with that.
It isn't easy to keep her from reading them all, but knowing how she will react to them it is worth it. We will probably let her read the next one this summer. So, my advice would be to see how she is doing with the plot and characters and how deeply she is getting into it before you let her read them all.

Butter (8) has loved Halloween and all things scary, supernatural and mysterious, as well as the color black since she was two. She mentioned that our dog and cat had died recently on the first day of school. Her first favorite movie was Nightmare before Christmas.
She didn't start reading HP books until we saw the last movie earlier this year. She's on The Half Blood Prince now...Previously she read Chronicles of Narnia (the whole series) starting at the end of first grade, Percy Jackson series in second grade and now HP. Well, actually, DH and I took turns reading HP aloud to Butter when she was in the womb, does that count? lol!
I would not say its "the norm" for a child so young to seem undisturbed by death, scary monsters, etc but that's just the way she's always been.
The Diva (almost 5), on the other hand, couldn't even watch The Princess Bride until she was 4, now suddenly, scary things don't bother her either, but she still isn't as "emo" as Butter, lol!

DS 5 was home sick and I thought okay maybe we could try it. He has always been sensitive and a fraidy cat but he has always been more comfortable with books as opposed to movies or TV for scary stuff. We read through the section about mr dursley going to work,the owls, dumbledore arriving, he loved it, then the first part about voldemort killing the potters and trying to kill Harry - forget it - lip quivering, way,way too scary. In retrospect, I knew it but I was swayed by how much he would like the rest of it!! So it will be awhile before I try again. It was sort of silly to rush, but i was focused on the orphan part as the scary part rather than the killing, so since he read Hugo Cabret and a bunch of other orphan books (annoying that it's always the vehicle) I thought it was okay, totally missing the evil killing part, sometimes I forget he's 5, oops

DeHe

DD, about to turn 6, could not have coped with any of them at the start of the year, when she wouldn't even look at a cartoon skeleton and would bust in to tears if one of us stood on an ant. But about 2 months ago she had suddenly moved past all that and we're now half way through the Half Blood Prince (the 6th one - we're all sharing the reading of them, which helps with explaining bits she's uncertain about). We've started each one on the premise that we'd stop if she was uncomfortable, but she's like a girl possessed. Can't get enough of them. We've watched the first 4 movies together, but she decided after watching the 4th one yesterday she preferred the books (yay - me too!)

But I do think that for this age there should be some supervision of it and an opportunity to ask questions - reading them together has been great for that and I'd have no qualms with her reading them to herself once we're done, but this first time through it just gives me peace of mind.

When DD was 6, she wanted to read HP, but I wouldn't let her. I knew she would love it so much more if she waited. At 7, she LOVED the books and I only let her read until the 5th book. I let her finish the rest at age 8. They are intense. I had a rule. She could see the movie only AFTER she read the book. That way, she knew what was coming and was less likely to scare.
She is 9 now and still hasn't found a series she has enjoyed so much. The problem with HP is that not many other books compare and it is hard to find another series. I also think there is some loyalty to the books. Like, moving to another series suggests she is over HP, which she is not.

DS6 read the first Harry Potter book after I bought it for him, but didn't really love it, so I didn't get the next one. I thumbed through one of the later books at a later date, and formed a generally low opinion of the writing. DS6, DW and I all liked the first movies, but not the last several so much, as we felt the image and animation richness and quality went up while the quality of the plots went down. There was a deal recently for all the HP movies on Blu Ray for $40+ shipped, which we skipped. FWIW we also found the Percy Jackson movie a bit silly, so we won't be buying those books, although I certainly won't keep him from them if he checks them out from the library.

These things are of course highly individual, and based in large part on emotional maturity. DS6 reads about and watches way bloodier and emotionally challenging stuff than Harry Potter all the time. He's full up on books for a while (currently going through some Stanislaw Lem and assorted other stuff), but for Christmas we did buy him "WW II in HD" and "The Universe" on blu ray. I know in advance that the bloodthirsty kid won't bat an eye at any part of the former, but that he may spend some sleepless nights worrying about the heat death of the universe.

OP, my view on reading level is along the lines of the following quote. I don't care a whit about tested reading levels, or what an educator feels is the right readiness or challenge level for my children; I think the whole idea of keeping things from children above their perceived academic comfort level is hogwash, and can be harmful to a highly gifted child. DS6 has shown the tendency to develop his own reading skill to handle whatever he's interested in at the time, and I don't ever hold him back on the basis of perceived reading level. You might consider making reading a more active process for your daughter by asking her to narrate to you what she's just read, ask her to define any new vocabulary from context, etc.

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him." - Maya Angelou

The concept of Zone of Proximal Development holds that students will learn best from books where they recognize about 90% of the words. Gifted students usually find that they recognize a higher percentage in what they choose to read, and they can be pretty lazy about tackling unfamiliar vocabulary. So I would say if they read a couple of paragraphs aloud and only stumble over a couple of words, and they enjoy reading it, they should be fine.

We never had any concerns for the scarier bits of HP for DD6, because she's fearless. At 4 she once picked up my book on the JFK assassination, flipped it open to the pictures, and demanded to know what they showed. I started explaining, and she became FASCINATED. We've had several conversations about the assassination since. Every so often she still picks up the book and peppers me with more questions. If she's not frightened by a true historical event, I'm not worried about fiction.

Few things in life frustrate her more than being too small to ride a roller coaster. But at the same time, she's very conscious about safety. For example, she wanted to know why she sits in the middle of the back seat, and I explained why it's the safest place in the car in case of an accident. She took that information and advanced it another level, because she independently decided to start wearing her bicycle helmet on car rides. DW had to discourage this behavior, because people in parking lots were noticing and giving DW dirty looks for being a psycho, overbearing mom.

Anyway, I'd say the worst thing in the whole series is the death of Dumbledore. DD6 has already seen it happen in the movie, and that moment clearly affected DW and I more than it did DD.

The writing quality is meh, I agree. But I'd say the plot qualities actually improve in the later books (4 and up), hitting the pinnacle in 6. Unfortunately, that's also the most completely awful movie of the series. As the plots get deeper and more intricate in the books, the movies end up leaving a lot more on the cutting room floor, because movie studios assume you can't sit still for more than 3 hours. They fixed that by doing the last book over two movies, but they really should have given the sixth book that same treatment.

Even starting at Azkaban the movies were rushed, with so many details and backstories dropped that I wonder how people who haven't read the books understand what's going on.

Try Diana Wynn Jone's Crestomancy books, and if she hasn't read 'A wrinkle in time' L'Engle that's a classic. Stephanie Toland has a book list for gifted 8 year olds that might have a few ideas. I enjoyed the whole 'Ender's Game' series.
Smiles
Grinity

DD started reading the book and enjoying it, she keeps asking 1-2 times a day to name you know who and after I tell her she teases me that bad things are going to happen, she is midway through, hopefully she will finish before christmas.
thanks for the support

Here's an interesting article about the series and impact on reading in kids:
http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/news/press_07252006_CP.htm

It's hard to stop them once they start reading! We managed to hold off until age8 for book 1, with the hope of stopping and waiting awhile for the next ones. Well, he breezed through books 1-3 in a matter of weeks so our plan was blown away! We made him wait until this year for book 4 (age9) now he's been begging for 5. I'm worried about 5 since Sirius dies in that one-I think this will really affect him so I am holding off on that one as long as I can! Sensitivity comes into play with books 4-7. Good luck in the new venture!

A great site for HP activites that we used when my son read the first book is at http://www.mce.k12tn.net/reading18/harry_potter.htm
It has an activity for almost every chapter and also a little reading comprehension quiz.
My son read book on in the HP series at 6 too. He still loves to be read to and i believe children that age should still be read to no matter how bright. (And of course on their own too) So anyway, we read it together, He read one page and then I'd read the next and so on. We still read that way, he's seven now, and has read the first 4 and a half and lost interest because of all the parts about girls and boys and just being frustrated at the story at that point..because the things that happen at that point make you mad. : )