Reading at ages 5 to 7
A first book to read yourself, built from sounds you know.
What a book at this level is
These are not descriptions of what we aim for. They are the numbers a draft is measured against before anybody sees it: a book outside them is rewritten, and one that cannot be brought inside them is not sent.
- Length
- 500 to 1500 words, aiming at 900
- Pages
- 12 to 20, with 20 to 90 words on each
- Longest sentence
- 12 words
- Reading grade
- Flesch-Kincaid 0.5 to 2.5
- Lexile
- 200L to 500L
- Pictures
- 8 to 12
- Chapters
- None. It is one story, read in a sitting.
- How much is people talking
- Between 20 and 60 percent
- Built from sounds they know
- Yes, against the phonics phase this reader has reached
- Danger in the story
- Mild, and always resolved inside the book.
What the story is like
How it is put together
Six beats: setup, a problem, a first try that does not work, a second try, the solution, a closing image.
What is worth worrying about
Social: a friendship, whether something was fair, being left out.
What is funny at this age
Things going wrong in front of you. A joke that comes back. Never sarcasm: a child who does not yet hear it reads it as the thing it literally says, which in a story is usually unkind.
The shapes a story takes
linear, repetition
Verse is allowed.
The sounds behind a book at this level
A book for this age is written against a phonics phase, so that nothing in it asks for a sound nobody has taught yet. Each phase below publishes the letters it adds and every everyday word a child who has been taught them can sound out.
The levels either side
Children move between these at very different speeds and the speed is not the interesting part. A reader here is moved when what they actually read says they are ready, not on their birthday.