Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Age Appropriate Books

I know there are several threads regarding books around here, but DS6.5 has recently tested in the 3.8-4.5 range (up from 3.0-3.5) in reading - that's end of 3rd, middle of 4th grade. He does AR tests based on his level. At the teacher conference, she told me that she will not put him up to level 5 due to most of the books being innappropriate for DS's age.

So, up until now, this has only been a small issue, so I've ignored it. But now, what books geared towards 5th grade readers are out there that ARE appropriate for an almost 7 year old to read? He says he's not ready for Harry Potter, as he gets scared easily. In fact, even though he's been ready for the Magic Treehouse series for some time, he just now started liking them. He used to be scared of the pictures.

Any suggestions for a boy at this level? It seems I am able to find a few more "girl" books, but he's not interested in those.

Have you tried http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do ??

I think you can search by age/grade/level - haven't looked at in a while, but it's fun to play with !! My 7 year old has just started reading the first Harry Potter book. He much prefers to read easier for him books, but has started to read HP in bed at night

I have not! Thank you! We live close to a Scholastic warehouse, so I really enjoy when they have their book fair warehouse sales! They should be having one sometime before Christmas, so I will use this to help figure out what to get DS!

I never thought about it like that. Of course, it took DS until he was 5.5 not to be scared of Nemo, and I'm not talking just the shark scene here.

We found a TON of books that were appropriate for a young, accelerated reader! Unfortunately, I resorted to "pre-reading" them myself first. Now that I can't keep up with the reading before DD starts them, I resort to the reviews on amazon. It has been very good in that if you read through enough reviews, you can get a good jist as to whether or not it's a good fit for your child.

Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins books are high-4th / low 5th, have a boy protagonist, and are well-liked by my 7yo.

We've got a similar problem - her beginning-of-year STAR test gave her a grade equivalent of 6.3 (which IMHO vastly overestimates her reading level - I'd put her at about mid-5th now, which is ~10 weeks later). We have a hard time finding 4th grade books (the level she's "earned" at school - she has the ability to move up to 5th if she were interested in jumping through the appropriate hoops) that are the right interest level for her. For a long time, books with too many pages or too-small of type were too intimidating. And now she's reading longer books, many don't work out because the subject matter isn't interesting. (The Percy Jackson books dealt with "too old" material, for instance.)

Thanks Alexsmom. DS just now started being less intimidated by books that "seemed" hard.

My ds is the same age and he loves anything by Louis Sachar. It started with the Wayside School stories because they are small books and each chapter is a story about another child/person. He also liked Dogs don't tell jokes, There is a boy in the girl's bathroom, The boy who lost his face, and is currently reading Someday Angeline. I have yet to order Holes.

my 6 yr old twins are reading Harry Potter and Narnia etc as I find the scarey bits in them easier to explain than other chapter books aimed at their reading level that have story lines that involve characters wagging school, tormenting their teacher, bullying, not believing in Santa etc etc (these concepts are just so foreign to my girls at this stage and I'd rather leave it that way)

Here is a couple of DS's favorites. Hope DC enjoys these. There are several in each series.

The Cricket in Times Square By George Selden

Poppy By Avi

You may also want to check these out on CD. They are also fun to listen to.