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If Children Are To Become Confident, Lifelong Readers They Need Access To Texts That Stretch Them

How to choose and teach books for class reading that will challenge students through language, syntax, grammar and more

James Clements
by James Clements
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One of the biggest predictors of academic success for children is being someone who reads widely in their own time. What’s more, the effect of reading on achievement isn’t confined to English; it extends across the curriculum.

After studying the reading habits of young people in 32 different countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development suggested that ‘developing a love of reading can be more important for a child’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic background’. This is powerful stuff.

But once children can read and are choosing to do it, does it matter what book they pick up? When it comes to reading in their own time, I’d say no. Children should be free to enjoy the titles they love without having to work through a prescribed list.

But while in class, if we want children to be ready for secondary school (and the challenging national tests that come first), we can help them by choosing challenging books to study.

Whether they’re reading classics or some of the wonderful fiction written for children today, we can help pupils by basing our teaching on books that they might not choose to read themselves and titles that they might struggle to access on their own.

Selecting your text

There are many types of challenge a text can bring. When we’re thinking about teaching, there are two main ones we need to be aware of.

The first is language. Vocabulary can make a text challenging for children. It might be technical language in a non-fiction book, or unfamiliar words in a classic text – ‘apoplexy’ or ‘buccaneering’ in Treasure Island. Understanding this vocabulary is a key factor in interpreting the text.

The second challenge is the structure of the language: the syntax and grammar. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for example, begins with a multi-clause sentence that is 57 words long and can stretch the understanding of the most confident reader.

It isn’t always the language that can be a barrier to understanding in a challenging text; it might be the ideas it introduces too.

The book might be set in an unfamiliar place or time; it might feature complex characters or situations that require empathy to understand. The text might introduce children to great ideas or concepts, taking them beyond their current life experience.

Classic or contemporary, these are precisely the type of titles that children should be reading at school – books that are rich and wonderful.

Teaching challenging books

It is very easy to say that children should read demanding books. Making the experience valuable and enjoyable is another matter.

Thankfully, there are plenty of things we can do to help children make sense of tricky texts, supporting them until they are at a stage where they can read any book they choose independently:

1. Model the process of being a reader. Shared writing is a key feature of almost all primary classrooms, with the teacher modelling the process of writing, taking children’s ideas and showing how a skilled writer creates a text. True shared reading is much rarer, but every bit as important. Demonstrating the process of reading, making explicit how an accomplished reader makes sense of a text, navigates an unfamiliar word, or infers an idea from the text, is the key to helping children learn to access complex texts.

2. Plan the curriculum carefully. Expecting children to suddenly access a very challenging text in Y6 is unlikely to be successful, but giving them the experience of struggling to make sense of rich texts as they move through the school means they are far more likely to achieve.

3. Poems can be a perfect way of introducing children to challenging texts and teaching them to unpack the meaning through discussion. While a challenging novel might tie the class up for half a term, a poem could introduce the same rich ideas and language in a few days.

4. Talk about books. Reading is often a personal activity but we can help children to become stronger readers by talking about texts and building a shared understanding. Pupils need an opportunity to compare ideas and argue (politely!) about the books they read. One of the benefits of complex texts is that there is always ambiguity, whether its with characters or plot dilemmas. This gives children plenty to talk about.

5. Of the many things we can do to help students become stronger readers, none is as effective and easy as encouraging them to enjoy books in their own time. Regular reading helps children to practice all of the strategies we teach them, build their vocabulary and background knowledge and develop the stamina to read longer texts. In the busy modern world, time for extended reading at home can sometimes be squeezed out, so give children time to read independently for extended periods at school.

6. Pay attention to vocabulary and background knowledge. These are likely to be the barriers that prevent children enjoying a challenging text. Pre-teach key vocabulary, support the texts with images and film clips and introduce any key ideas to the children first. For example, if you’re sharing the story of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, having some knowledge about how the Romans drove out their last king and established the senate to rule over Rome would be useful. Knowing that the king’s bodyguard, Brutus, played an important part in this revolution helps children to understand the dilemma his ancestor faces when we meet him in the story.

Getting the right balance

Of course, not every text a child reads has to be brain-achingly challenging. As adults we read for many different reasons and it should be exactly the same for kids. Everyone needs the time to go back to books they love, cry with laughter at funny ones, and experience time standing still as they sit, gripped, by an exciting and fast-paced thriller.

As teachers, we need to find time for all sorts of different types of books, both to study and entertain. And of course, sometimes, a book will do both of these things.

Ultimately, if we want our children to become life-long readers, we need to give them the opportunity to think, talk and argue about great books and the complex ideas they contain, developing the language of literature and also, we hope, a genuine love for reading.


Challenging texts to share

Early Years Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton A Friend for Little Bear by Harry Horse

KS1 Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill Grandad’s Island by Benji Davies Days with Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel The Last Polar Bears by Harry Horse

Lower KS2 Coraline by Neil Gaiman If by Rudyard Kipling Cogheart by Peter Bunzl The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge One Thousand and One Arabian Nights retold by Geraldine McCaughrean

Upper KS2 The Island by Armind Greder A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley


James Clements is an education researcher and writer and the founder of shakespeareandmore.com. Find him on Twitter at @james_shmore.

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