Primary Teacher Bookshelf has read and reviewed our newest range of Chapter Readers. Releasing this month!
Our brand new range of Chapter Readers are designed to follow straight on from level 10, or the White band of Early Readers. With increased pagination and a more complex language style, these longer texts build children’s reading stamina and help them to prepare for junior fiction titles.
November is here which can only mean one thing…the new series of Maverick Chapter Readers has arrived! Six stupendous new titles spanning Lime, Brown and Grey book-bands are sliding onto the shelves ready to engage and enthuse children about to take those next steps to independence in reading chapter books.
Having taught Year 2 last year and my son moving into Year 3 in September, I know there is such a gap in the market for high quality first chapter books. Even though my son is an able reader, he is not yet ready for longer middle grade novels and he still very much needs pictures to motivate him to read a longer fiction book. I had become so frustrated, particularly during lockdown and the summer holidays trying to find books that are sufficiently challenging without being too overwhelming. As well as a fantastic to any classroom selection of readers, these would be great for parents desperately trying to source books to enjoy at home that are appropriate for this stage
We have thoroughly enjoyed spending the past couple of weeks reading and reviewing these six brand-spanking new titles. From ghost girls, colossal caterpillars, detective dogs, computer games capers and underground adventures, there’s a range of stories that will appeal to everyone – oh and let us not forget the spookiest ice-cream parlour you’ll ever visit!
Each book is around 50 pages in length, comprising of 8-10 short Chapters. These provide natural breaks in each of these perfectly-formed short stories for readers to stop if they need to. This is satisfying for young readers building stamina as they see themselves progressing through a book quickly. The narrative is interspersed with colourful, lively illustrations that maintain that extra level of interaction with the book. In each of the stories, the plot moves along quickly holding young readers’ attention.
At the end of each book there is a handy set of discussion points. These vary from straightforward retrieval, multiple choice questions to how, what and why questions and they mirror the reading comprehension style questions children of this age are required to approach. As well as answering each point verbally, children could practise formulating a written answer.
My son read each of the books to me and between us, we quite honestly couldn’t pick a favourite. The characters and stories are each so different and my son liked them all for different reasons. Often this type of title are limited to animal stories or a series of stories with the same main characters, but the ‘variety pack’ nature of these Chapter Readers was a big plus for us.