Choosing Books for Your Advanced Reader
When your child is beyond children's books, what's next?
Help her find a book that's right for her age and her reading level.
If your child is reading above grade level, many of the usual rules and advice for choosing books fly out the window, as she eagerly snaps up anything in print. But there are steps you can take to broaden her skills and her horizons.
At first, it's easy to jump ahead and select books for your first grader from a third grade reading list. Before he reaches a middle-school level of proficiency, this is an easy and safe choice, since the subject matter for a grade a few years ahead should still be appropriate for a child a few years younger. Double-checking the content is still a good idea, but just reading the blurbs about the book should be sufficient.
In general, when considering what books to select, your advanced reader will continue to excel if the books introduce different subjects, cultures, and ideas. Just as it is a good idea to check if the vocabulary in a book is too advanced, it is also important for the books to introduce new vocabulary. Selecting books from different genres, such as nonfiction, poetry, science fiction, and mystery will not only showcase different vocabularies but also present new worlds of possibility and learning.
Series
Advanced readers tend to be voracious readers, reading three to four times more books in a year than average readers, which makes series a great choice. If you find a novel in a series that your child is interested in, check that the content is appropriate and then you can probably let her loose reading the whole series of books. For advanced Sci-Fi lovers, the adult-aimed series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is a funny and different choice.
Books About Exceptional People
Many advanced readers are gifted in other subjects and may feel isolated or different from other children their age. Books about real-life geniuses and exceptional children, such as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl; Ordinary Genius: The Story of Albert Einstein; or Beware, Princess Elizabeth are great choices for your child. Novels about kids who are different will speak to him and help guide him as he grows. Check out The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer, and The Secret School by Avi.
Poetry
To get your fast reader to slow down and notice the wonderful nuances of language, poetry is a superb choice. Poems are rich with unusual words and metaphors that show your child new and different ways that language can be used, and the many different meanings one word or phrase can have. Also inherent in poetry are lessons in meter and rhyme, which will be all the more apparent if she slows down and reads each poem aloud. The poems of Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Edgar Allan Poe present three very different styles and subjects for her to explore.
Award Winners
The Newbery Awards, given annually to the best of children's literature, are great books for advanced readers. Most are written from the point of view of adolescents, and deal with major issues such as moving, growing up, sickness, poverty, and death. They will inspire your child to consider issues of class, race, culture, and identity, and the language and plot of these books are engaging and complex enough for advanced readers. Also consider Coretta Scott King Award winners, which honor books that "promote an understanding of the American dream" written by authors of African descent. For older readers, use the Michael L. Printz Award for Teen Literature to find excellent reads.
Adult Fiction
Most likely, your advanced reader is eager to choose his own books, including adult fiction. Adult fiction can be a wonderful choice and should be encouraged, though you will probably want to check reviews and blurbs of the books to make sure the novel doesn't hold any content you object to, such as explicit sexual content or violence. Some parents believe that children's reading choices shouldn't be censored, while others feel it is okay to say no to books. Whichever side you stand on, it is a good idea to steer your gifted reader to classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Flies, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Guide him to the books you loved in high school and connect with your child as you discuss and rediscover great literature.
