“I wasn’t keen on reading when I was young. My mum was worried about me because I didn’t do very well at school. She encouraged me to read about football in newspapers, magazines and books. Gradually I came to love books”. Later Tom went on to do his A levels at the age of 21 and take a European literature degree at the age of 24. He is the author of two main book series about football. The first is the “Football Academy” series for children aged 7-11. These are fairly easy to read- reading level Amethyst and feature some brilliant footballl stories. The other series are for slightly older children aged 10+ are in our Amber reading level., and combine a thrilling mix of football and crime.

For a child who is not very keen on reading, choose “easy to read” books first, such as Tom’s Football Academy books. Once they get going with these or maybe the David Beckham Academy books, try them with Dan Freedman’s Jamie Johnson series.For more easy to read, exciting books for reluctant readers, have a look  at our “Reluctant Readers” page at Hummingbird Books.

4.If they are only just starting to read “chapter” books on their own make sure there are plenty of pictures. It certainly helps the story along.

5. Make sure the book isn’t too thick. The prospect of reading a really long book can be all too much for the new reader.

6.I know that the temptation is to “stretch” children by giving them something that is quite a lot of effort, but I would urge you to consider whether if you were sitting down to enjoy a good book, you would want one that was an effort to read, perhaps because the words were hard to read or you didn’t understand all the meanings. Let them get the reading bug first and be begging you to give them the latest in a favourite series (even if it is the 75th Rainbow Magic book they’ve read), then, ever so gradually, try something else, one small step up. If they’re not keen, they’re probably not quite ready to move on. At the end of the day, once they get the reading bug, I don’t think you’ll be able to stop them and they’ll naturally move on to harder things. If they’re reading a lot of books, join the library-you don’t have to buy them. Local libraries are usually more than happy to order you as many books as your child wants from a series and on children’s tickets they rarely charge for the privilege.

7. Try to find books that are popular with other children. It seems that if one child likes a particular book, there is a very good chance that others of the same age or reading at a similar level will like it too. Look at book reviews and choose only books that have 4 and 5* ratings. Take care with reviews that are written by adults who say that they “loved this book when I was young”.Some of the classics, although enjoyed by many children have quiote a lot of description and it seems that in the fast paced world in which we now live, children often cannot face wading through 7 pages setting the scene, before anything actually “happens” in the story.

Hummingbird Books only lists books that children have rated as 4 or 5* books, so you may find this a useful resource when looking for books for your child.

8. Ask friends for ideas for books to read,  something they have enjoyed. When children chat about books, they tend to encourage each other to read, maybe swapping books to give each other something new to try.

9) If your child is a bit older and is perhaps a reluctant reader, although quite capable, follow the guidelines given here still, but ensure that the subject matter of the books is suitable for his/her age and not “babyish”. Books for reluctant readers are in a special section on our website for this reason.

10) If your child has always found reading difficult, again, follow the guidelines given here, but ensure that the subject matter of the books he/she is reading is age appropriate - more ideas in our section for struggling  and dyslexic readers.

If you have any great tips to encourage your child’s love of reading, we’d love to hear from you.

OK, so getting your child reading may be a slow process, but it will definitely be worth the wait.Hopefully we can give you a few guidelines. Encouraging a love of reading in your child is one of the most wonderful gifts a parent can give to their child. Sure it’s very annoying when George in your child’s class has read “All 7 books in the Harry Potter series” as his mother announces to the teacher in a stage whisper (hoping everyone will hear) and your child is still struggling to move on from Horrid Henry. But if you rush it and suggest they read books that are too difficult, you’ll be more likely to put them off altogether.

So here are the first three steps in my action plan for getting your child reading

1. Let your child see how much fun books can be-if you can, read to them at night. This can be as much fun for you as for them, especially if you put on all the different voices (don’t worry-hopefully, no-one is listening).If the word “book” only means something they struggle through at school, clearly you are less likely to help them to become a book lover.
2. Choose books that are at the right reading level for your child. This is crucial. If they can easily read the book, they are much more likely to engage with it.We are just introducing a new system at Hummingbird Books where every book will be categorised with a reading level. This is similar to the old system of reading age, which was essentially how complex the vocabulary was, but it takes into consideration lots of other factors as well such as font size, number of words on a page, number of pictures.
3. Always check the font size in particular. When I am helping children to choose books in school I always open the book after we have looked at the front cover and read the synopsis on the back and before asking the child to read a bit of the book, I ask them if they think the book might suit them. At this point they often say “No, the writing is too small”. So we go back to the drawing board to look for a book with writing of the “right size”.

In tomorrow’s blog we will look at the other factors that affect a child’s enjoyment of books and reading.

So I thought I’d give it a go. I seriously couldn’t believe it when, on Wednesday afternoon, my inbox started to go mad with new followers on Twitter, congratulations from various people and there buried deep within the huge stack of emails was the one from Jacqueline Gold herself to say that she had chosen us as one of her favourite businesses this week.

Jacqueline said “Reading is such an important skill so this is great. I love that you listen to the children about what books they like.”  As you all know, this is the basis for Hummingbird Books and is what seems to strike a chord with both parents and children.As I always tell the children in school.” These are not books that parents say you should read, or that teachers say you should read; these are books that you and other children tell me you want to read.”

Thank you so much, Jacqueline, for making my day and helping us to raise the profile of Hummingbird Books.

In this digital age in which we tend to shop on line a lot, and therefore don’t always have a book in our hand when we are considering a purchase, it is often difficult to work out whether a child will actually be able to read the book when it arrives.Admittedly, Amazon and others now have a “Look Inside” facility, but the idea of our new grading system is  that you will first be able to assess what level your child is reading at (eg Ruby) and then choose books from that category up until the time when they’re reading them too quickly (and it’s costing you an arm and a leg in books) at which point it’s time to move onto the next level.

Check it out on our “Reading Levels” page at www.hummingbirdbooks.co.uk  .

We haven’t categorised all our books yet, so please email us if you’d like details of the reading level of a specific book. anne@hummingbirdbooks.co.uk or talk to us on Twitter @hummibooks or Facebook/HummingbirdBooks.

The London Evening Standard campaign which aims to”Get London Reading” has already trained hundreds of volunteers to work with children on a one-to-one basis in an attempt to make a difference to the one in four of the capital’s children who are not reaching the  required level by the time they are 11. This worthwhile project even had Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, getting a little boy reading who had previously shown no interest in books at all. Was this because she was royal? Well maybe, but perhaps we shouldn’t underestimate a kindly, grandmotherly  lady who was prepared to sit and listen while he read to her.

The local primary school near us relies so much on their parent helpers to sit with the children one to one and yet the numbers are dwindling-everyone’s so busy and really doesn’t want to commit to a whole morning every week. I would say that if you can only spare half an hour once a week when you drop them off, it could make such a difference to our children and their reading. I’m sure you would be welcomed with open arms by Y3,Y4 and Y5 teachers. In fact, if most parents in a class offered to stay for half an hour once a month, that would make a tremendous difference too.

Let’s Get Britain Reading!!

To find great book ideas to get them reading, whether they are keen readers or reluctant readers, visit us at Hummingbird Books.

For more similar books such as the Tom Gates series, click on the following link to our “Easy to Read/Reluctant Readers section”

 As regular followers will know, I originally set up Hummingbird Books because, as the mother of an avid reader (then aged 9) , I found it hard to find sufficient titles to keep him going. We were fine when he had a series on the go, but once he’d completed that series, it was always a question of what next?

I thought it might be useful to explain how I found an infinite number of books for him (well thousands anyway) , to try and give you a few ideas for shortcuts in case you find yourself in the same position. Obviously you may wish to start by using the listed books on our site, all of which have been recommended by children as being really good ones. I felt it was important to only list books that children had given 4 and 5* ratings to. Reading a mediocre book at this stage, could well put a child off reading altogether.

I then “Googled” suggested reading / good books for 9 year olds etc. This uncovered a few valuable sites including  Cool Reads which was set up by two boys a number of years ago. The site has lots of reviews and hundreds of books all categorised into genres. I simply wrote down the titles of all the 5* books , checked that the reviews were also good on Amazon and then ordered the books for my son, usually through the library( in order to keep the costs down). Other useful sites included Love reading for kids but I always checked the reviews on Amazon before going ahead with a book, mainly because they sell so many and I have generally found their reviews to be pretty accurate. One of the things I always do is to avoid reviews that have been written by adults. I find that adults often give  a book that they enjoyed 30 years ago an amazing write up, but that it may not suit their child who has been born into a different generation.

I also made extensive use of this site to find out the order of books in a series. I’m not sure whether it is still regularly updated, but I have found that most major series are listed.

With regard to library ordering, many local libraries have a system of on line ordering where you simply put in the book title or ISBN number and then reserve the book. You may also have the choice at this point of ordering the book in other formats such as large print or with a CD ( as an audio book) . It usually doesn’t cost anything to reserve books in this way and I must have saved hundreds of pounds over the last few years, ordering the books I knew my son would really enjoy rather than relying on himto choose books from the rather limited selection on the shelves of our tiny rural library.

Happy Book Hunting!!

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series seems to have captured the interest of a lot of children recently and although suited best to children in the Year 5 and 6 age range, both younger and older readers seem to be enjoying them as well.If you want to take a look inside the book at the actual text (written in comic style format), first click on this link and then on the BUY NOW link.