Bedtime stories for 5-6 year olds on the iPad

[RealSquirrels]

reading age of 9...

famous 5... those gnome stories by terry pratchett, the hobbit, etc.

[RealSquirrels]

thinking about it they may have been books i read when was about 9, rather than books for a 9 year old.

[FlossyThePig]

Landlord said:

You're both assuming that a) I have the opportunity to go shopping with or without the boys and b) I have space to keep the books. Neither of which I have. Not disagreeing with you both, just your suggestions don't fit with my lifestyle unfortunately. Thanks for you input though!

The convenience of them being able to browse and buy a book within minutes outweighs the "pleasure" of holding a book to me. As for turning the pages, they're pretty adept at unintentionally turning a few at a time and us all being puzzled as to why the story doesn't flow!

Don't people consider visiting the local library these days?

[Landlord]

FlossyThePig said:

Don't people consider visiting the local library these days?

Bit difficult when they're in their pyjamas.

[northwest monkey]

Fas1975 said:

Mobile Chicane said:

What about the books we were gripped by as kids?

Stig of the Dump
All of Roald Dahl
The Wind in the Willows, etc

Could not agree more. I've got the kids reading the same Enid Blyton stuff that I read as a kid. Everything from the Magic Faraway Tree series through to Famous Five / Secret Seven stuff. Easy to read, easy to understand and does trigger the imagination

Reading my 5-year old (very nearly 6) The Faraway Series at the moment & he's loving it. It's the first "proper" book we've read together (i.e one without loads of pictures) and he's enjoyed it much more than I thought he would.

OP - can't you just get some books? I bought these from a second hand book shop for 25p each!

[northwest monkey]

Landlord said:

FlossyThePig said:

Don't people consider visiting the local library these days?

Bit difficult when they're in their pyjamas.

They open all sorts of times - including the weekend;)

[Landlord]

northwest monkey said:

They open all sorts of times - including the weekend;)

I was referring to the beginning of my OP:

Landlord said:

I'm looking for recommendations for books/apps that I can use to read to/with my boys at bedtime.

Obviously I realise the point was to take the books out of the library, hence the wink!

[northwest monkey]

Landlord said:

northwest monkey said:

They open all sorts of times - including the weekend;)

I was referring to the beginning of my OP:

Landlord said:

I'm looking for recommendations for books/apps that I can use to read to/with my boys at bedtime.

Obviously I realise the point was to take the books out of the library, hence the wink!

Ah, sorry!

I've taken my son to the library a few times - it's interesting seeing the books he picks rather than the ones I do when I go for him. He tends to go for factual books (Pirates, Dinosaurs etc) rather than stories.

[TheExcession]

Landlord said:

You're both assuming that a) I have the opportunity to go shopping with or without the boys and b) I have space to keep the books. Neither of which I have. Not disagreeing with you both, just your suggestions don't fit with my lifestyle unfortunately. Thanks for you input though!

Can they borrow books from school?

I appreciate your circumstances might be difficult, and I wouldn't dream of criticising any parent from encouraging their child to read.

After months of telling my lad he should spend more time reading books it was a wonderful feeling when he came home from school with a book and said 'Daddy I got this book from the school library, it looks like a good story can we read it?'

So we spent one night reading - and we got through half of it! We finished the book the next day.

He was so proud that he'd read a 70 page book in two days and couldn't wait to get back to school to pick up the next in the series. There were five or six books in this story and the first one left us both wondering what was going to happen in the next one.

I was astonished at his attention span (easily over an hour each session) and his commitment to finishing the story and wanting to find out what happened next.

I suppose the problem with online/download stuff is the old 'choice paralysis' issue - too much to choose from, so there is little I can recommend.

For me the key is keeping their interest so a series of books where the story carries on from one book to the next might be of interest.

The second point I think is simply the fact that my lad just loves the interaction of us both doing something together.

Him wanting to turn off the tv/computer and sit quietly on the couch with only our own voices and a book for company seems to really keep his interest at the moment.

One thing I did with him was that we started reading alternate words to each other. Then we moved onto me reading a sentence then him reading the next.

By doing this I could scan read a paragraph ahead, get the tone of the story and characters and then apply the correct intonation. He of course can then follow and has some guidance to the feel of the situation being depicted.

So we now end up reading in a manner where we create voices/personalities for each of the characters. Then we also have a 'voice' that is the narrator of the book - the commentary if you will.

We have 'stock' character voices for Scottish, Yorkshire, Midlands, West Country, Welsh, London, French, German, Italian, Jamaican etc etc....

As characters are introduced in the book we pick a character voice for them.

It takes a lot of work (mainly on his part), and I'm still working hard on encouraging him to read ahead first and take his time before calling it out loud in what ever character accent we've assigned. So for example if one character in the book is assigned 'Yorkshire' when that character says 'Hello Mary, how are you?' - we might actually call out 'Eh up Mary lass, ow's tha bin?'

It's such a refreshing change to hear a child apply an interpretation to what is little more than black symbols on a white page, all instead of that monotonous stumbling reading you often here, each word one after another with little rhythm, rhyme or character.

Teaching a kid to read is the easy bit, teaching them how to read is the really rewarding part.

Good luck!

[northwest monkey]

TheExcession said:

So we now end up reading in a manner where we create voices/personalities for each of the characters. Then we also have a 'voice' that is the narrator of the book - the commentary if you will.

Oh good, it's not just me that does this then

My "Gruffalo" should be award winning!

[ClaphamGT3]

northwest monkey said:

Oh good, it's not just me that does this then

My "Gruffalo" should be award winning!

My Gruffalo draws mainly on Ray Winston, whilst the fox is Lloyd Grossman, the Owl is the Revd Dr Iain Paisley, the snake is Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter and the mouse himself is a cheeky young lad from Sunderland - a sort of Ant & Dec meets the young Rodney Bewes

[northwest monkey]

ClaphamGT3 said:

northwest monkey said:

Oh good, it's not just me that does this then

My "Gruffalo" should be award winning!

My Gruffalo draws mainly on Ray Winston, whilst the fox is Lloyd Grossman, the Owl is the Revd Dr Iain Paisley, the snake is Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter and the mouse himself is a cheeky young lad from Sunderland - a sort of Ant & Dec meets the young Rodney Bewes

Interesting - for some reason my Fox is a bit Terry Thomas, like you the Gruffalo has morphed into some gangster type bloke but with a more northern accent, the Owl is heading towards Stacey Solomon for some bizarre reason & the snake is also Hannibal Lecter My son does the voice of the mouse!

He's nearly 6 now so we don't read it that often - when he's feeling a bit under the weather though it's always the book he asks for as it must be very familiar. If I say the wrong word I get the whole huff / eye rolling thing!