Emerald Star, Jaqueline Wilson

[goldenstar]

Will it be useful for elevenplus english practise

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emerald-Hetty-F ... 0857531050" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks

[Daogroupie]

I would not use Jackie Wilson for Eleven plus English. She is writing for a younger age group in my opinion. We went to a session with her and most of the girls were much younger. Also her plots are too domestic and I don't think her vocab is challenging enough. I would recomend The Secret Garden. The Little Princess, Tom Sawyer, Little Women, The Railway Children, Carries War, Tom's Midnight Garden, Goodnight Mister Tom, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Skellig, The Wind in the Willows, Ballet Shoes, Peter Pan, Oliver Twist, Anne of Green Gables, Alice in Wonderland, The Water Babies, The Call of the Wild, Heidi, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The indian in the Cupboard, I Coriander, What Katy did etc. Not forgetting one of our all time favouries, never tire of it, Just William. Anyone know any websites where I could get the text online. I think it must still be in copyright. I can't find it anywhere. DG

[goldenstar]

Thanks a lot.

[KS10]

And if you have a kindle many of these are free to download.

[inmystride]

I wouldn't ever discourage a child from reading any book that wasn't obviously inappropriate. Reading is a life skill, not exam prep.

[DC17C]

I have to say my dd who is now in yr 7 at GS has not read many of daogroupies list but has gone from reading all the Skulduggery Pleasant, books, anything by Anthony Horowitz, and all the Twilight books to now reading Jane Austen and Charles Dickens for pleasure so I would say encourage whatever your children enjoy reading.

[Kingfisher]

The OP was not about which books to read for pleasure but which to use for 11 plus practice and I interpreted that as text choices for analysis and exploration of technique. I like Daogroupie's list for that purpose. There are reading lists galore on other threads.

I encourage reading for pleasure, of course; although I think parents should know what their children are reading and preferably have read the texts themselves. Twilight needs to be avoided for young readers. As does Lord of the Flies.

[DC17C]

Sorry I am in a different area which is currently only VR( but not for long CEM has been mentioned for the future) so not had to worry about this degree of english prep- luckily.

[mystery]

I like ado groupie list but my children do not enjoy reading those books .... But they like listening to them. It's hard to find unabridged versions though on cd. I think it's a good list for super selective but not needed round here fr bog standard grammar. Books they do in group reading at school are rubbish - this is the kind of thing they could introduce them to but it's all junk round here.

[um]

While I agree that you can get books with 'better' vocab and sentences structure than Jacqueline Wilson's, I wouldn't discount them - I find that they're incredibly popular (with boys as well as girls, believe it or not!) and I have just bought a whole pack of them for my students to borrow. One relatively reluctant reader has just read 4 big books of hers in a week.

I love the classics, and if children will read them, that's brilliant, but I have seen children try to read Little Women, Secret Garden, etc, struggling on for weeks and also struggling to find relevance to today's life in the plotline, and they end up disinterested and disheartened.
I would rather a child pick up a book and 'devour' it within a few days (as they do with Jacqueline Wilson as well as some other authors) than end up not reading at all. After all, with Jacqueline Wilson they are still gaining reading fluency and confidence, and are still picking up on plot, character, inference, prediction, etc.