English chapter book for kid

agustus

Hi LeeHoMa,

It depends very much on the language cognition skill of your children and your target.  Magic English is pretty simple. I don't mean the language, the theme and the story bored any normal children.  If you can tell more about the children's ability, maybe we can discuss this topic better.

I'll suggest books Detectives stories for upper primary students and tales for lower primary.  But it'll still depend on how many vocabulary they understand.  It'll never be advisable to 'force' a child to read when he/she will need a dictionary to check more than 40% of the words.  That will not interest the child in any way to move to a higher lever.

Thus my advice is: First, figure out how good is the English standard. As most local children has adequate understanding skill. So, reading a too 'naive' English books wil not get them anywhere, while reading the child's equavalent will be too tedious as the understanding of English is inadequate.  Secondly, you'll have to figure out what you are expecting to get.  Sit down with the child and discuss this topic.  You'll know what the child need by the end of half an hour of discussion when the child talks more than you.  Don't advice too much, just listen and give guideline.  It'll work wonders.  Hope these help.  If you can tell me what the child's recent book, maybe I can guess what is the level.  Just my humble opinion, thanks for reading.

agustus

Hi LeeHoMa,

Sorry to reply late, been busy with work and family lately.  

My children love to read detective stories thus I bought plenty for them. I don't know the age and grade of your child but I presume you have a P4 and a P6 children. If you want series books, I'll recommend Goosebumps, Hardy boys, Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Pony Pal and Geronimo Stilton.  Hardy boys, Famous Five and Nancy Drew are more classic stories about young children solving problems including crimes, I love them when I was young and thus introduced to my children when they are ready.  They love them too. These are for the older children say about p5 to form 3, depends on the ability.  Goosebumps are not too mysteries but full of adventure and some even 'spooky', still, it's a thrill to read them. lately, my young child love Pony Pal which is also a series of books about young children getting a pet pony and the relationship between them. It's touching and lots of moral to learn from.  Geronimo Stilton is a new series, there are Chinese and English version of it, I believe the latest is book 36 but I have not buy yet.  It's about a mouse reporter solving mysteries. kind of cute as the book got lots of different writing and color as the fonts.   My children will read the English ones I bought and read the chinese version from school library.  The library has only Chinese version.  I used to buy lots of books for my children as they wanted to re-read most of the time.  If you are not sure what to get best, scholastic, oxford, cambridge and longman published lots of english fiction with different levels.  i don't believe in the levels as not all type of books are suitable for all people.  Still those levels are a good guideline.  I bought a series of books call Black cats, they are in levels but I doubt it's the proper way to arrange. nevertheless, there bound to have children who love that type of differenciation.  I also have lots of scholastic books, they have a series in form of apple fiction, little apple , apple mysteries and so on.  Quite delightful to know the books are teaching moral values too other than just improving english.  If you are interested to try out some of the books I mentioned, I can show you some of mine provided you are not too far from my resident or office.  My children are all book lovers so they treasure the books very much. My house is a small library with thousands of books. Or, if you wanted just to view on them, I can take some pictures and post it here.  Well, got to give me some time as I'll be free on weekends.  Hope these helps and have a fruitful day.

agustus

Hi LeeHoMa,

Well, I am always late, sorry.  I messed up my children's arts and so had to help her re-do all over again.  Wow, never expect to use half a day just to do a small lantern.  

My home is not a library, only my children call the shelves so as they are taking turn to be the librarian. Anyway, I've taken some photos of one of the book shelf.  I never know it's so pack already.  Maybe it's time to either get more shelves or reduce some collection.

Hope these pictures can ring some bells to your thinking.  Have a nice day.

agustus

Sorry, i just can't copy and paste the photos so I upload to yahoo photo.  Hope this works.  If you still can't see them, feel free to tell me.  I'll try harder, grin.

http://sg.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mansur0104/album?.dir=/9367scd

agustus

Hi LeeHoMa,

I'm glad you found a Goosebumps book in the library.  As far as I know, only a few Goosebumps books are multi-ending.  Those on the side-cover with words written " Give yourself Goosebumps" will be Multi-ending.  I have series number 14 The creepy Creations of professor Shock, series number 15 Please don't feed the vampire, series 23 Zapped in space and series 30 You're a plant food are multi-ending.  The rest are not.  But I did not have all series in hand as some of the books my children left them in school locker or 'on-loan' to friends.  I'll have to see to know as I do not read all of my children's books.  They will exchange books with friends to read 'other people's ' books.  Sometimes, from there they will love another type of series.  I can figure out if there are anymore multi-ending ones but for now, from what I can see, it's about 4 out of 25.  It's about 16%.  I think my children dislike multi-ending books so they will not buy the whole series unless I am 'stupid' enough to buy them.

We have quite a handful of library cards so every forthnight, my eldest one will borrow 48 books from the library.  I seldom go to the library with him anymore ever since he wanted to 'choose' for himself and his siblings.  Well, I don't really have so much time for every single details, maybe I should take note on what they are reading from now on.

Tell me if your child like the book, all the best.

agustus

I have more than 4 children.  Not living with the grands, they dislike the noises my children make, only visited the grands once a month during weekends. I have a big family, my library card and my spouse card are ours, I also need to borrow material for my personal or business use.  My spouse read a lot too, thus our cards are ours.

Yes, you are right, they have 8 cards, that is very careful of you to think of it.  My youngest is in primary 1 and eldest is in form 7.  I did not choose to have so many but God blessed and I happily accepted.  Not all my children are healthy, I have special need children too.  We are a big happy family.  

So, your girl is in P3, must be an adorabe young lady. Don't worry about her reading habits, read to her or she read herself does not make huge differences.  The most important thing is if she enjoys and comprehend the story.  You've done very well as you have time to listen and share with her.  I am not so hardworking, I will listen to them only if they can tell me in summary.  I will spend more time with the younger ones though.  Most of the time, I will pretend I don't know the story and 'guess' the ending.  I hope they can understand that stories are all with one ending and in real life, it's not so.  If I read a good story with some moral education to tell, I will share with them.  We will play 'if'. For example, if I were the girl, I will.... If I can am going there, I will...  That will make them think further into real life.

For example, my form one girl read a story ' the ice princess' she told me about the struggle the character and how strong she is in the battle to learn skating.  She is not happy at the ending as the character did not win the competition.  I told her that life is not only winning, it's the enjoyment alongside and the challenge, the satisfaction and the family support.  What the character earn is something she did not have: her mother's support.  But she went all the way to achieve her dream and work hard to win her own battle.  So, if I were her, I will tell my mother about my interest in skating and asked for her support, not in momentary term but in all other aspects.  I will work hard to achieve even if I will lost, it's still a challenge. . .
I'm sorry, i should tell you the story first or you'll not understand what I'm trying to explain.
Ice Princess is about a college girl who tried hard to get in harvard by doing a project in physics.  Her mother wanted very badly for her to get in harvard and she is good in physics.  Her teacher asked her to do a project, very personal project that can win her a scholarship for harvard.  So, she started by observing ice-skating turns and aerobic movement.  She did a good job but her teacher wanted a 'personal' project, she must be involved.  She she began to learn the basic movement but her mother disapprove of it.  She pay her lesson by working for the skate ring in the morning and learn from the ring-master in the evening.  Her grades drop as she did not have enough time to study and her friends are slipping away from her.  She had to hide from her mother who dislike skating.  The story goes from one failure to one success and failure and success.  Her friends , her alibis betrayed her and eventually, she lost almost everything, parents ( she is from a single-parent family), academic results, scholarship, friendship and she can not join the competition as she was hurt in the semi-final.  But thing changes when one of the finalist gave up and she is invited to the final.  She faces lots of difficulties and eventually, her only skate shoes were stolen right before her turn to perform.  The shoes are found from another competitor and she forgave the culprit telling people that she will not win by forfieting other competitor.  At the end, she got second, not having the chance to join the winter olympics but got a scholaship.  My daughter thought the character is 'stupid' to forgive people who stole her things but I told her, it's very noble of her to do so.  It's never easy to forgive and forget.  Well, easy said than done, I am still learning to do so.
The moral in the story is about struggle, dream, forgiving, support and friendship.  I did not know how much my girl understood but my youngest son enjoyed the story during dinner.  He even told me that he wanted to learn ice-skating, ha ha.

Well, I hope I am not boring you with all these minor matter of my family.  Hope you enjoyed the story I typed in a rush.  If you are interested in the book, I can tell you the author, I forgot and can't find the book now, maybe is in another girl's hand as we told this story on Sunday, usually, they will fight to get the book after the 'debate'.  I'm reading another book lately, maybe I can share with you sometimes later if you're interested.  

Have a nice day.

agustus

sweet_bbb,

I am really ashame to be not too truthful.  I am not the mother of all those children, I am daddy.  Most of the work are done by their mother, I am just assisting.  Not all the children are my own but I take all as mine.  I will not differenciate which is our own children which is not as I know I love all of them equally.  I know what is going on with the children as I do the studying and research and planning.  My spouse does all the hardwork.  I'll send your praises to her as I know she will blush and shy away.  Still, I can not take her credits.  

Hee hee, I did not intend to mislead you but I did not tell you i am a man.  Maybe I sound too 'woman'  as my involvement with children is tremendious.  Sorry about it.