Naturally we spend a lot of time worrying about our struggling readers and what reading material to give them. We endeavour to provide books at the seemingly appropriate ‘interest level’, rather than the reading age, calling these Hi-Lo books (high interest, lower reading age). At the other end of the spectrum, where readers are reading fluently at a younger than expected age or stage, it can be equally challenging. Similarly the problem again lies with what is deemed to be the appropriate ‘interest level’ for the reader’s age and maturity and what is therefore suitable or not-suitable. Only last week, a teacher from Hertfordshire talked to me about her anxiety of choosing books for fluent readers in Year 2, and I understood exactly what she meant. I had the same issue with a child in Reception who could read anything and everything put in front of him. It had benefits – like reading in the Christmas play – but I had nothing suitable in my classroom for him as all of the other children were at various stages of the Book Band system we had in place. Most children were starting their progression up the bands – Yellow or even Blue in a few instances, but this child would probably have been at Lime or Brown level (if you were trying to hold him back for the sake of comprehension of the story).

As we know fluent readers are not necessarily taking in the story, or making the same inferences that a more mature reader would do. Comprehension aside, where we have readers that are gifted or advanced for their years, how can we make sure they are reading the right books? ‘Right’ meaning that they offer the reader a good level of challenge whilst keeping them engaged, but without exploring themes that children are not ready for emotionally. Scaring them silly so that they can’t sleep is not the ideal outcome.

It isn’t easy is it? How do you monitor an individual’s book selection in the school library at all times? What if a parent complains? There are no two ways about it really – the only way is to make sure books are scanned or skim read first. Moving up the book bands system probably works for ‘scheme’ books but it can be a bit more of a minefield when you are dealing with ‘real’ books. I have the responsibility of choosing books for schools and it consumes my days. I completely understand that teachers are extremely busy and that pre-checking books for their confident readers is time-consuming and probably not a viable thing to do.

When we think of ‘super-confident’ readers – we tend to consider them as reading two years above their chronological age. This isn’t so tough for children in KS1 who will be reading material perhaps most often found in the Year 3 and Year 4 classrooms – probably the Brown and Grey book bands, as books for this age group are typically a more light-hearted read based on humour and adventure. However, I have recently been challenged, and unexpectedly so, when putting together a collection of books for super-confident readers in Year 3 and 4. These children would be looking for books with the same challenge as Year 5 and Year 6 but there is a big difference in maturity between 7 and 11 years old and so simply looking for Dark Blue and Dark Red books wasn’t going to work – as we found out! Never in the past 10 years have we read, and importantly, rejected, so many books for one pack. We passed 20 books and rejected a minimum of 60 (possibly more, but I can’t say as my boss will know that I spent rather a long time on one pack!). Why did we reject them? Many reasons…dark magic, frightening scenes, references to high school, relationships – particularly family issues deemed to be a bit traumatic, language issues (creeping in more and more), animal loss or cruelty, emotionally challenging storylines, events way beyond experiences for age etc. It provided hours of discussion about whether we were being too sensitive and what language was acceptable. We eventually drew our lines in the sand and I’m hoping that next year when we update the collection it isn’t nearly as difficult.

We currently have two collections for super-confident readers, one for KS1 and the other for LSK2. You can view these collections here, or peruse our full range of challenging reads for KS1 and 2 by following this link.