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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.