Children vary greatly in terms of their reaction to books. Some children at this age are only interested in interactive books with flaps, tabs and noises; others want bright, bold illustrations; some are hooked by pacy rhymes; and others quickly grasp the humour in stories and love funny books. It is so subjective that it is hard to say what books will appeal to your child – the key is to let them try as many as possible. While small children love rereading the same books, try also to encourage them to try different types of books to broaden their experience and their enjoyment. Look for books with rhyming stories; books with bold, bright pictures; books with detailed illustrations so that you can talk about what they can see; books with flaps and tabs; books with sounds; books with soothing pastel illustrations; books with fun animal characters; books with letters and numbers; books with traditional tales; books with their favourite TV characters – in short, look for books of any sort to get them interested.

This is a critically important time for children and their experience will shape many of their attitudes to books and reading. Try to read books with them at all times during the day, children will quickly realise that they enjoy different books at different times, depending upon their mood and children who associate reading solely with bedtime lose out on so much.

At this time, there is much that you can do to encourage children and help them to enjoy their reading. Asking questions about pictures and what children think will happen next will help to get them involved. Helping children to tell the story from the pictures alone will let them play an active role in the story telling - pictures play an important part in the reading process, providing clues to the story line and drawing children into the book. Encouraging children to fill in missing words by using the pictures also works well as a way of involving them in stories. Another tactic to hold a child’s attention is to ask them to spot familiar letters and words and to help them to recognise patterns between words. You will probably notice that young children are very sensitive to the sounds that make up words, this is why they enjoy rhymes and the skill helps them to become good readers – look out for books written in rhyme to help them on their way.

For children who appear to be less interested in reading, books containing their favourite TV characters can be effective bait. Try Thomas the Tank, Winnie the Pooh, Kipper, Bob the Builder and others to attract resistant readers. Animals are also another big attraction and many stories are based on animal characters to hook young readers, look out for these to entice your children.

Reading aloud to children at this age is extremely important and sharing books with them is the beginning of the reading process. At this time, there is much that you can do to encourage children and help them to enjoy their reading. Asking questions about pictures and what children think will happen next will help to get them involved. Helping children to tell the story from the pictures alone will let them play an active role in the story telling - pictures play an important part in the reading process, providing clues to the story line and drawing children into the book. Encouraging children to fill in missing words by using the pictures also works well as a way of involving them in stories. Another tactic to hold a child’s attention is to ask them to spot familiar letters and words and to help them to recognise patterns between words. You will probably notice that young children are very sensitive to the sounds that make up words, this is why they enjoy rhymes and the skill helps them to become good readers – look out for books written in rhyme to help them on their way.

As children grow, you will be able to spend more time focusing on the words themselves and helping them to begin to recognise letters and words. The key is to give them lots of encouragement and to ensure that reading does not become a chore and that it stays fun for both of you. Children often want to read the same books over and over again and while you may be trying to broaden their horizons, this is not necessarily a bad thing. By rereading familiar books, children will be able to notice more about the words on the page and you will be able to focus on the words themselves without children losing the thread of the story. Of course, it is important to introduce different types of books to children and understanding what grabs their attention will help you to identify books that will still interest them even though they are a change from their old favourites.

For those children who are ready to start to learn to read, and don’t worry, they will certainly let you know, it is an exciting time. You will come across a number of reading strategies and you, or the child’s school, may be using any one of them; or, which is most likely, you may be using a combination. This makes it all sound very formal and academic but you will probably employ most of these methods without even thinking about it; however, it may be useful to have a few new ways up your sleeve if you find that the child you are reading with is getting a little stuck. It is also worth remembering that different children will respond to different techniques, so it makes sense to try several different methods to see which works best.

Phonics is one of the most popular methods and involves awareness of the sounds of letters and patterns of sounds and letters. This method helps children to build up words that they do not recognise and can give them huge encouragement and confidence as they realise that they can read far more than they thought. It is important to select books that have manageable words in them that can be built up, books like the Frog and Toad series and the This is the Bear series are perfect at this stage. Many picture books are also designed to have simple, large text and these work well, especially if children are already familiar with and enjoy the stories. Developing a sight vocabulary is also important at this age. Here, children are encouraged to memorise key words so that they recognise them immediately without building them up. Focusing on these key words while reading a story with them will develop this word store but be careful that this doesn’t dominate the reading session so that the child loses the thread of the story and with it his enjoyment.

These two methods of reading are probably the ones that we all think of straight way but there are other reading strategies that can be extremely effective when used together with them. Using a child’s memory is important, not cheating as some fear - by encouraging them to remember details of the story and what words come next allows them to make linkages. True, they are not reading using the words themselves but it acts as a trigger and the rest will come over time. Using picture clues is also very important. Children will begin to tell a story by looking at the pictures long before they are able to read at all and this is a particularly important practice to encourage at this age when they are likely to move from the pre-reading to reading stage. When a child learns to read they use the pictures and words together to understand the story. If a child gets stuck with some words, encourage them to use the picture clues to work it out – this also builds their confidence enormously as they realise they can and it helps them to view and enjoy the book as a whole. Another useful method of helping them is to encourage them to work out words by guessing what they might be, based on what is happening in the story or what they think will happen. Another effective way is to use books with rhyming stories so that the sound of the rhymes themselves will help children to work out the words – there are now lots of books written in rhyme for this age group although some of our favourites combine rhyme, pace and humour such as those written by Lynley Dodd.

Various of these strategies will come into play at different times depending on the age of the child and their reading ability. Many adults though make the mistake of believing that Phonics and sight recognition are the only “real” ways of reading, remember that all the other clues are important too and will build a child’s confidence and increase their enjoyment of reading. This is particularly true at this young age when children will be taking their very first steps in reading.

This is an exciting time for children as they start to read for themselves and make visual images of the words they are reading on the page. It is a time for encouragement above all else, let children choose the type of books that they enjoy and try not to worry if it’s football or horses yet again. This is a great age for reading together as the baton is passed from adult to child and children are finally able to read you the stories rather than just listen to them. It is as well to remember that children are different in terms of how they read. Some children are happy to get the gist of the story and aren’t too worried about accuracy, others insist on getting every word right and refuse to guess at all – it is up to you to let them develop and for you to make sure that reading doesn’t become a chore and that it stays fun for you both.

There are a number of reading strategies that are used to teach children to read. You, or the child’s school, may be using any one of them, or, which is most likely, you may be using a combination. This makes it all sound very formal and academic but you will probably employ most of these methods without even thinking about it; however, it may be useful to have a few new ways up your sleeve if you find that the child you are reading with is getting a little stuck.

Phonics is one of the most popular methods and involves awareness of the sounds of letters and patterns of letters and sounds. This method helps children to build up words that they do not recognise and can give them huge encouragement and confidence as they realise that they can read far more than they thought. It is important to select books that have manageable words in them that can be built up, books like the Frog and Toad series and the This is the Bear series are perfect at this stage. Developing a sight vocabulary is also important at this age. Here, children are encouraged to memorise key words so that they recognise them immediately without building them up. Focusing on these key words while reading a story with them will develop this word store but be careful that this doesn’t dominate the reading session so that the child loses the thread of the story and with it his enjoyment.

These two methods of reading are probably the ones that we all think of straight way but there are other reading strategies that can be extremely effective when used together with them. Using a child’s memory is important, not cheating as some fear - by encouraging them to remember details of the story and what words come next allows them to make linkages. True, they are not reading using the words themselves but it acts as a trigger and the rest will come over time. Using picture clues is also very important. Children will begin to tell a story by looking at the pictures long before they are able to read at all. When a child learns to read they use the pictures and words together to understand the story. If a child gets stuck with some words, encourage them to use the picture clues to work it out – this also builds their confidence enormously as they realise they can and it helps them to view and enjoy the book as a whole. Another useful method of helping them is to encourage them to work out words by guessing what they might be, based on what is happening in the story or what they think will happen. Another effective way is to use books with rhyming stories so that the sound of the rhymes themselves will help children to work out the words – there are now lots of books written in rhyme for this age group although some of our favourites combine rhyme, pace and humour such as those written by Lynley Dodd.

Various of these strategies will come into play at different times depending on the age of the child and their reading ability. Many adults though make the mistake of believing that Phonics and sight recognition are the only “real” ways of reading, remember that all the other clues are important too and will build a child’s confidence and increase their enjoyment of reading.

It is generally during this period that children make the transition from picture books to chapter books. This is a big step for all children and it is important that the first chapter books that you choose are manageable. Try to find books that have good size text and have a good amount of spacing between the lines and between the words themselves. This transition is made much easier for children if their first chapter books have good illustrations too, chapter books do not have to mean the end of pictures for children. Try to ensure that the first chapter books you read together are not too long, chapter books generally require much more stamina than picture books and children will tire quickly.

Many adults find that it is a real temptation to stop reading to a child at this age because they can read for themselves. Bedtimes stories and other reading times remain very important because chances are that their reading ability will not yet have caught up with their interest and they will love hearing stories that they would not be able to manage themselves. Shared reading also enables you to explore new books with children. Reading aloud with all the feeling, accents, fun and drama that that entails can bring books alive for children in a way that nothing else can and it is likely that you will be able to interest children in books that they would otherwise have ignored.

It is important to remember that children, like adults, want different types of books at different times. They don’t always want to be stretched – sometimes, they just want to read a comfortable book to relax, so don’t worry too much if children return to books that you think are now rather easy for them – let them discover that there are books for every mood and they don’t always have to be hard work.

During this period, children’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them develops incredibly quickly. All adults are constantly amazed by how worldly and sophisticated children are now compared to how they were at the same age – this has implications for the books they read too. Do not underestimate what children of this age can manage, while they love the humour of Anthony Horowitz, Alan Durant and Philip Ridley, they can deal with the weighty issues explored by David Almond and enjoy the combination of wit and childhood angst as portrayed by Jacqueline Wilson and Anne Fine. Children at this age don’t need, or want, everything to be magical and perfect, they are beginning to deal with the realism of the world around them and will often enjoy fiction that seems real and entertaining.

Finding appropriate material for teenagers can be tricky, particularly when they seem to be much more worldly than the generation ahead of them was at the same age. Adults often feel that certain subject matter is inappropriate for teenagers, while the children themselves take it totally in their stride and indeed many such subjects are normal fodder for classroom conversation. The challenge then, is to find a compromise where the teenagers are interested in the books while the adults are not too appalled by the content – where to start? Well, a good starting point lies with a number of modern authors who write for a wide age band and can take children from the age of 10 or 11 through to about 14 and so are dealing directly with that difficult transition into the teenage years. Writers such as Jacqueline Wilson, Anne Fine, Morris Gleitzman and Judy Blume deal with relevant issues for teenagers in a contemporary way with modern language so that they can relate to the subject matter and also to the characters. Other authors like Philip Pullman are wonderful storytellers and write across age groups, managing to hit the spot perfectly at each stage. Many more authors now write for the teenage markets and by following our age and subject prompts you will be able to see a selection of them.

At about the age of 13 or 14. earlier for some children, teenagers begin to make the move from children’s books to adult novels and non-fiction. Despite what teenagers may believe, however, not all adult fiction is appropriate as there may still be some issues, language or styles of writing that you do not want to expose them to at this stage. We have not chosen to make available a huge selection of adult fiction as this takes us outside the remit of The Children’s Bookcase, and besides, it’s much easier to find a good selection of adult books; however, we have chosen to feature a number of adult authors who, we think, produce material that is ideal for this bridge from children’s to adult literature. We feel that authors such as Agatha Christie, Janet Neel, Ellis Peters, Dick Francis, Tom Clancy and Alastair Maclean, to name a few, offer a good place to start. Try using our age and subject categories to identify other suitable authors.