Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion book recommendations for "free reading" at school

Were a book to be read once and never looked sat again I may agree with you but we believe that a good book is something to be treasured and savoured again and again seeing new interpretations and things previously unoticed with each pass through.

The Hobbit is a children's book - no controversy there whatsoever

The wind in the willows - a ripping yarn with humour and pathos the first time I read it and I appreciated the 'class warfare' aspects of it later which then morphed into an understanding that change/revolution isn't always a synonym for progress on subsequent reeads/recollections of it

Harry Potter surprised me as DD had a surpringly rich and elaborate understanding of these books - we did eke them out so she had time to process each. She has subsequently re-read them several times, her favourite right now being the 5th one and I fully expect her to continue to enjoy them and see new subtleties with revisit.

I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one

HP, Hobbit, and Wind in the Willows are also not 4th grade reading level. HP book 1 is maybe 5th grade, but as the books go along they get harder, up to 6th-7th grade. Wind in the Willows is quite hard, and slow. Same with The Hobbit.

Some children will reread and some won't. My DD9 did not read HP till 8 and has since reread the whole series at least 8 times. This is great in the sense that she has surely wrung more meaning out of it than on first read--but still, there is much she cannot "get" yet by virtue of being 9. I hope she'll reread again when she is closer to the teen years.

I know some kids who read the series once, or had it read to them, or worse, just saw the movies, and considered it done and over.

We can agree to disagree. I love to re-read books and do encourage it. But unfortunately from my perspective too many kids get the attitude that they have "been there" done that and don't re-read the books the way I would. Plus Wind in the Willows and The Hobbit get really really boring and slow at times. While they were both written as children's books, but children in the 8-12 range. All of these are excellent read out loud books in my opinion, but not ideal books to send with a 6 year old to school.

Another great chapter book for advanced readers is "Dragon Rider" by Cornelia Funkle in early elementary.

The Hobbit Grades 6-12, GLE 6th, Lexile 1000L
HP & the Sorcerer's Stone Grades 4-8 GLE 6th, Lexile 880L
The Wind and The Willows Grades 3-5 GLE 8th, Lexile 1140L
Dragon Rider Grades 3-5, GLE 4.9, Lexile 710L
How Droofus The Dragon Lost His Head Grades Grades K-2, GLE 4.9, Lexile 830L
Midnight on the Moon (Magic Tree House Chapter Book) Grades 3-5, RLE 2.1, Lexile 320L
Captain Underpants Grades 3-5, RLE 4.3, Lexile 720L
The Bad Beginning (Series of Unfortunate Events) Grades 6-8, GLE 6.1, Lexile 1010

These are from the Scholastic web site. And while these Grade Levels are designed for "average" kids. It's data to consider and think about. It is possible with some work to find books like "How Droofus The Dragon Lost His Head" that are more challenging to read yet entirely age appropriate for an advanced reader.

Well, it definitely depends on the 6yo. One of the lessons of this board is never to assume! However, the OP mentioned her son was reading Droon, MTH, and Bionicles. Going from those books to The Hobbit/HP would be a pretty big jump, unless he is generally reading below his ability, which some children do.

Reading levels are an inexact science, to be sure.

Thanks to all for the wonderful list! I am putting it all into a spreadsheet. My DS is reading at 4th grade level (this is the school's assessment, and I don't know how they assessed him). He loves non-fiction and I provide books related to his current interest and he reads the Story of the World series by himself. His favorite books at home are the Usborne science encyclopedia and the "The way things work".

My opinion is that he is reading at a level below his ability where fiction is concerened because Ninjas and Bionicles and Droon are the stuff that gets talked about the most in his social circle. And his taste tends to fast moving action packed adventures right now. I don't think that he can read The Hobbit yet. But I have read it aloud to him - he finds it and the Dr Dolittle series very slow and boring. But, he comprehends them 100%. And months later, he remembers a lot of it, though it seemed like he was uninterested while he was sitting through the read alouds.

But, where non-fiction is concerned, his curiosity seems to drive him to read material at the middle school level sometimes. He just took a book on alternative energy sources to school to read at free reading time because his current topic of interest is electricity.

Thanks for all your recommendations. Now, I have quite a few books that I can plan on sending in to school from all your posts.