Emily from booksb4bedtime has written a lovely review of some of our new Early Readers and Chapter Readers. Here’s what she had to say:
Our pick for #TeachKidsTuesdays and #ChapterBookTuesday are the Early Reader series and Chapter Readers. These are fictional stories, so I am not sharing non-fiction picks today.
Obviously, I am not a teacher, however I have been frustrated in the past by the books that my son has got from school, and what I could find at the library as an alternative. I have started helping at the school library and so the topic of readings schemes and what inspires children to read, has been discussed. I was really keen to see what these were like, and what my son thought, as well as other parents.
I was sent five of the Early Reader set and three of the Chapter Readers. Both are book-banded in line with the UK Institute of Education’s colour-banded scheme. The Early Readers cover Blue, Turquoise, Orange, Green, White, Purple and Gold bands. They are 800 to 1000 words long.
The Chapter Reader series covers bands Lime, Brown and Grey. They are approximately 50 pages in length, comprising of 8-10 short Chapters, smaller font, slightly fewer illustrations and are longer texts. Each of the Chapter Readers has a ‘Discussion Points’ questions section which is useful for checking comprehension of the text whether verbally or in written form.
Everyone who read the books agreed how exciting and fun they are and there are lots of amusing and engaging illustrations with diverse representations. We definitely agreed that the samples catered for differing levels of ability, and that the Chapter Readers fill the gap between Early Readers and Junior fiction. All have an easy-to-read font that decreases with each book band and chapters that are short enough to cater for differing levels of reading stamina. There’s also a useful discussion section at the end of each story to help to make sure the child has comprehended what is going on in the plot. I would definitely advocate adopting this scheme from the point of view of a parent.
Thank you!
You can read the full review here. Browse and buy our full Maverick Reading Scheme from Hive.co.uk