She has done very well with books about intense topics (protagonist is a refugee, protagonist with an addicted parent…) but she needs to be able to lean on the images to help her follow the plot. Not too literary, please. Direct and literal.
Her mechanical capacity (re:r reading) is excellent- in the test where the child sounds out words phonetically she’s well above grade level. Her ability to read a sentence and tell you what is said in her own words is worryingly poor. Graphic novels seem to really really help
by MarsMonkey88
2 Comments
I’m a reading specialist and my students and I both love Raina Telegmeier graphic novels. Smile, Guts, Sisters, and Ghosts all have pretty straightforward plots—Sisters goes back and forth in time, but the flashback pages are a different color. Her book Drama is also great but there’s high school romance stuff that might be confusing to follow (nothing sexual). She also did graphic novel adaptations of a few Babysitters Club books but I haven’t read those.
Edit: she might also like the I Survived or Girls Survive series. In each book, a kid survives a historical disaster such as Pearl Harbor, the great Chicago fire, etc.. I’ve read a few of them with students and they’re action-packed and very straightforward.
*Bone* by Jeff Smith
*Amulet* by Kazu Kibuishi
*The Graveyard Book* by Neil Gaiman