Solo Readers
Some children take to reading like ducks to water. They start with a mish-mash of sound-it-out phonics and word recognition ("I know that word!") and off they go, improving steadily.
For others it's a far, far harder road. So much effort has to go into the business of working out what those black marks on the page actually mean that they easily lose track of the story. And that makes things even more difficult.
These readers are just as bright and sophisticated as others their own age. It's just that the way their brains work doesn't mesh well with the decoding of the printed word. They need good stories that don't patronise them, or treat them as younger than they are. But until they finally take off, they really do need a simpler, more straightforward form of writing to give them confidence and win them round to being happy with reading.
It's a real challenge for an author, and one I very much enjoy. So here are some tales written with these particular children in mind.
Tales from Weird Street, Back on Weird Street, Prambusters, How Brave Is That?, Gnomes, Gnomes, Gnomes, The Haunting of Uncle Ron, Into the Bin and A Remarkable Ear all published by Barrington Stoke.
Hole in the Road, published by Collins Educational.
Click on the covers below to find out more about these books.
Your bookshop or library can order any of these books for you. Ask your librarian for a 'request card'.