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KC in TX
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| Posted: Aug 02 2010 at 1:45pm | IP Logged
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What do you do for children who read many, many years above grade level? I want to have my kids read off a reading list, but my middle daughter is way above picture books. She's going into the second grade. To give you an idea of how far above grade level she reads, she read the first Harry Potter book at age 5. I don't want her reading any book because there are books above her maturity level.
What do you all do with children like this?
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KC,
wife to Ben (10/94),
Mama to LB ('98)
Michaela ('01)
Emma ('03)
Jordan ('05)
And, my 2 angels, Rose ('08) and Mark ('09)
The Cabbage Patch
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: Aug 02 2010 at 4:27pm | IP Logged
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I have something of the same question.
My son has not read the Harry Potter books, but not because he can't - just because ours are packed away for when is older and we can discuss them together.
The other day, he brought out from my room "The House of Seven Gables" and said "I think I can read this one - I read the back and it sounds interesting with a house stolen from a wizard!"
Ummmmm. NO.
My son just turned 6 this past April. He is doing 2nd/3rd grade level work because of our situation which requires some proof of work at each grade level. But he has flown through no less than 5 curricula's reading programs through 4th grade and has read several books more intended for middle schoolers - and based on our conversations, he does understand what is going on. His vocabulary is great - pronunciation needs correction from time to time, but he actually does well (one of his reading curricula series really focuses heavily on pronunciation and the use of the dictionary even in 1st grade - so he does!).
Thankfully my son is one who will go deep with books - not read them once and move on. He'll read them once and move on, but keep coming back to it!
One thing I have done regarding readings lists - I pulled out the ones from each curriculum we've used or had access to. For 2-3 weeks at a time (however long was needed) we had a small bookshelf in the living room dedicated to books from each grade level. This was just fun reading - read together, read on own, act it out, create artwork with it - whatever (we encourage creativity in our house a LOT).
In this way, I was able to assure my son had taken the time to read things like Beatrix Potter in a more in-depth way - along with many of the other beautiful classics and picture books. We are still doing Catholic Mosaic as a family - because even us adults get something out of beautiful picture books!
My son had read most of the books off of the reading lists, but there were some he had just not taken the time to read yet or we needed to get them from the library. And it gave him the opportunity to return to the books and re-read them (he has no problem re-reading - he LOVES it!).
So reading lists for younger children - if you're choosing the high-quality items, are still fine - they'll be perfect for maturity level, for the beautiful themes - and for the opportunity to create artwork (painting, drawing, plays, sculpture, etc) off of favorite works.
I suppose that is our family's solution then - make sure that at least some books are truly delved into, discussed, artworked, dramatized - not all books, but at least some.
We also have a LOT of books in our house - so there is less need to go to the library all the time (and therefore choices are limited to what I find acceptable (well mostly... House of 7 Gables would be appropriate for OLDER children!))  
I am right now more concerned about what we're going to do in the next few years.... 
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ekbell
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My oldest daughter also learned to read at an early age and has maintained advanced reading skills.
I've found that using older children's literature to be a good stretcher as the language is different then she's used to but the topics and narrative more likely to be age appropriate. Also buying second hand books stretches our book buying dollars and often I've either already read the book or can easily find information on it. This site is a great starter point when considering old children's books. Gutenburg Children's literature
I have also allowed my advanced reader supervised access to more advanced books that I've pre-read and know doesn't contain material she's not ready for (mostly from my own collection of books that I started keeping as a teen)
It's worked well for us. She gets to read a mix of books both at her age level and older but she isn't faced with material that she's not ready to handle.
BTW I've found that it worked better to have age level books for more formal English lessons as she could think more deeply about books written for her age level then she could about books written for older children. [I also found that it worked the other way around as well, another child who needed a bit extra time to read independently benefited from discussing age appropriate material which was read to her ]
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leanne maree
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| Posted: Aug 02 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged
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Our dd was reading bookd way above her level like yours, all her ds and db were as well.
Once she ran out of appropriate books. I got her interested in her histoy and saint readers. Bethlehem and De Wohl books.
That way she was always with a book, but reading books that were of value.
She read far quicker than I could pre read as well, so I needed to have good literature in her view.
I quickly needed to pull any material that was not age appropriate off the shelf and place them elsewhere.
occasionally she would just want to chill and read twaddle- but not often.
It has made for some interesting teaching. I also ask dd to tell me what the book is about, that way I know she is not 'skimming'.
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Leanne
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: Aug 02 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged
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Oh yes! I didn't think about the older books in my LONG post We have many of older books that aren't necessarily classics, but are definitely just good books.
Most children's books written many years ago are written at a higher level without getting into too mature topics.
My son's favorite reads of the week: we have some of the original Grimm fairy tales and he loves them (of course, we didn't read any fairy tales before he was 5 or so because we are also very Montessori in our home - and fantasy is saved for when the child moves into the 2nd plane of development (5/6 - 11/12) - so now he's there and these stories are about his own explorations).
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Aug 02 2010 at 7:34pm | IP Logged
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When we face this (young reader reading well above grade level), I make use of the many gentle, but beautifully written books written from many years ago in much the same way that ekbell does.
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Jen Mackintosh
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leanne maree
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The classic and older books are a lovely way to go.
our yong..dd is 12 and she is really expanding her knowledge now, using so many varied age groups. i am so pleased I can keep an eye on what she is reading, and recommend good solid literature
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Leanne
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JennGM
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Most of my family all read above their grade level, so I tend to apply what my mother did. I also see my older son doing the same as I, so I try to remember what I did.
It's the voracious reading that sometimes is hard to keep up. I find he's just reading all.the.time, and scanning my shelves at all the titles.
Like Jen and ekbell, I like to have many good books around, because we tend to go through too many from the library. Growing up we had some classic children's literature, and I'd find myself reading "Black Beauty" and "Robinson Crusoe" because it was *There* on our shelves. And I started trying to read from my mother's shelves, some of her religious titles. I think I was pretty young when I tried reading "Story of a Soul" and "Confessions of St. Augustine". I wanted a challenge.
But I also reread titles, because they were comfortable and "home" to me. Little House, Narnia, The Velvet Room, Edward Eager, Elizabeth Enright. The junior fiction section in the library was my favorite, and I still to this day gravitate to the "older" books (50s and 60s) by the binding, because I was rarely disappointed.
While there are some picture books that are above my son's grade level, I still think they are delightful and varied for me, even as an adult. So we continue to check them out. And I see him going back to the comfortable ones, like the "I Can Read Books" for a quick trip.
I try for a varied diet of picture books, chapter books for subject reading, classic and old literature (I introduced "Half Magic" and he just loved it) and fun books like TinTin and mystery series.
I've mentioned this before, but growing up we had a textbook that we read over and over, but it was a step to good literature, Anthology of Children's Literature Edited by Johnson, Sickels, Sayers (first edition Johnson and Scott) is such a treasure.
This is a thick volume that contained over 700 stories and poems, collections from various lands and literature and picture books. Growing up we had the 3rd revised edition and read it from cover-to-cover. Now I personally own first, 3rd, and 4th editions because even though the basic information doesn't change, the suggestions of authors and books does change over time.
The first edition has no illustrations, the 3rd and 4th editions have some b&w sketches by Fritz Eichenberg, but the 3rd edition has some gorgeous full color paintings by N. C. Wyeth.
Can't rave enough about this book. It's a tool for Mommy, but also a wonderful read-aloud and read-alone book for the children, all ages, as soon as they can manage to handle the unwieldly volume.
Most recently I picked up A Critical History of Children's Literature; A Survey of Children's Books in English. My library had a discard for five cents. I got the revised version.
This is so well done, also. It covers early English literature up to the 60s, in different categories and different time periods. My only criticism is that I want a list of the books and authors he mentions, because I'm have to make copious notes to keep track. It's a goldmine of information for authors and books to give ideas to steer my child into good reading.
And I gravitate towards lists, finding living books lists from different reading levels. And some of those "read-alouds" for lower grades I add for him to read on his own.
It's still a work in progress. Isn't it such a joy to see your children love books?
My son went to a play on Monday, "James and the Giant Peach". He came back enthralled, wanting to check out the book immediately. Then he confided in me what the differences between movies and play vs. books, and told me he likes books much better, because you can see the words, pictures on the page, AND the pictures in your mind.
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JodieLyn
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I haven't read everything.. but my suggestion would be to look for read aloud book lists.. those are often a higher reading level but still appropriate to a younger child.
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: Aug 18 2010 at 7:49pm | IP Logged
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I have one of those type of readers, too, and I am loving all these suggestions.
I just put my library's website to work and my lovely librarian is going to have nice biceps after she hauls all the books I just put on reserve from the main branch to our satellite branch for me.
Hope he like them!
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Krista
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I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Kids reading above grade level
