Growing Bookworms – Age groups for children’s books: Early Readers #GrowingBookworms #childrensfiction

Posted: April 10, 2024 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, Interactive Books | Tags: Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read | 47 Comments

*Picture caption: Growing Bookworms banner depicting a squirrel drawing in coloured pencil by Robbie Cheadle*

Encouraging children to read is very important. Reading helps children build language skills, learn about the larger world and also, develop empathy and emotional awareness. Parents reading to their children is one of the greatest gifts you can give.

In order to ensure the children are fully engaged in the book and story, it is important to read age appropriate books. If a story is to complex for a child, he/she will not fully engage and will lose interest. If the book is to easy for the child, he/she will not learn anything new and there will be no progression.

This is a summary of the different age groups for children’s books:

Books for toddlers

These books are aimed at children up to approximately 3 years old. They are printed on hard cardboard for durability and usually contain interesting pictures with accompanying words and/or phrases.

Early picture books

The age group for these books is 2 to 5 years old. These books are driven by colourful illustrations and often teach a life lesson about friendship, empathy, and kindness. They help teach children the social skills they need for school. The text is simple but stimulating.

Picture books

Picture books are aimed at children aged between 5 and 8 years old. These books contain a full story, sometimes told in rhyming verse, and contained beautiful pictures and illustrations to maintain interest and aid reading. These books are usually between 600 to 1,000 words in length and often include educational material.

This is the target market for most of my children’s books which are interactive and also include recipes (Sir Chocolate books), activities for children (Sir Chocolate Highdays and Holidays books series) and wildlife facts, photographs and wildlife videos (Southern African Safari Adventures Books).

Picture caption: Banner including a picture of Sir Chocolate and Lady Sweet and including the covers of the first six books in the Sir Chocolate books series

*Picture caption: An introductory limerick to Amahle, the pregnant giraffe from Neema the Misfit Giraffe.*

First chapter books and graphic novels

These books are aimed at children who have learned to read on their own. They are usually between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length and contain a more complex story line. While these books still contain illustrations, there is more text than pictures in the book. The storylines often still adhere to the concepts of acceptance, friendship, and sharing. These books can also expand into more complex areas such as nature conservation and exploration.

Michael and my book, Haunted Halloween Holiday, fits into this category. This story’s primary messaging is around acceptance and diversity. The family unit around which the story revolves comprises of Count Sugular, a vampire, Witch Honey, their baby, Baby Howler, who is a banshee, and Skelly, Count Sugular’s brother who is a skeleton.

I created a short YT video story called Haunted Halloween Safari which uses some of the characters from Haunted Halloween Holiday and gives an idea of writing and creative level of this type of book.

Next month, I’ll be chatting about middle grade and graphic novels as well as young adult novels and graphic novels.

About Robbie Cheadle

Photo of Robbie Cheadle standing in front of trees.

Award-winning, bestselling author, Robbie Cheadle, has published fifteen children’s book and three poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

Robbie also has two novels published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.

The eleven Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.

Robbie and Michael’s new Southern African Safari Adventures series is aimed at teaching young children about Southern African wildlife in a fun and entertaining way. Each book contains a rhyming verse story about a particular animal, as well as illustrations by Robbie Cheadle, photographs and links to video footage about that animal.

Robbie’s blog includes recipes, fondant and cake artwork, poetry, and book reviews. https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/

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Growing Bookworms – Interactive books for children – Part 2: Digital books

Posted: September 14, 2022 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: Books, Interactive Books, Literacy, Parenting | Tags: Growing Bookworms, Interactive Books, Literacy, reading education, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read | 66 Comments

Last month, I discussed physical interactive books for children and their benefits. You can read this post here:

This month, I am sharing the pros and cons of digital interactive books for children.

Firstly, what is an interactive eBook?

An interactive eBook is an ebook that has elements with which the reader can directly interact. This type of ebook has a lot of touchpoints where the reader can interact with videos, audio recordings, links and other content.

I read several articles about the benefits of eBooks for children and the experts believe that reading print books to toddlers and small children results in a better reading experience for the child. Research shows that children and parents/caregivers interact more frequently with one another when they are reading a paperback book and turning pages, and the quality of their interactions are better. This translates into better language development, literacy and bonding with caregivers.

The above being said, there are benefits to eBooks. Enabling children to learn new words and improve their fine motor schools are two of the more obvious benefits. The ability to engage with the storyline and possibly make choices, teaches children to weigh up options and improves their decision making abilities.

For reluctant readers, animated sounds, actions and special effects in books makes them more interesting and helps develop an interest in books and reading.

For economically disadvantaged children or children in settings that do not allow for borrowing books from public libraries, eBooks are a cheaper option. Parents can accumulate a digital library for their children at a fraction of the cost of a physical book. eBooks are also a more environmental friendly option as they do not use as many natural resources.

Children whose parents work long or unusual hours and can’t read to their children, benefit from having stories read to them by a digital reader. eBooks also provide for parents to read to their children when they are not in the same location. Parents and children can synch their ipads or iphones so they can interact on their screen in real time while holding an audio conversation. This is beneficial for parents whose jobs involve travel.

The down side of eBooks in this context is that to many sounds, actions and special effects can distract the child from the story as they don’t focus on it, but rather on the interactive features. There is a concern among experts that many eBooks available commercially are targeted towards amusement and emphasis multimedia, colours, sounds and other interactions and do not encourage literacy and language development. Studies have concluded that multimedia elements that enhance an understanding of the text benefit children, while those that draw the child’s attention away from the story, are non-beneficial.

If you are interested in having a look at what is available for children in the eBook line, Amazon does stock them. Here is a link to one such book called Another Monster at the End of This Book…Starring Grover & Elmo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B7S5FDG. There are a number of interesting reviews for this particular book.

What do you think about eBooks? Have you tried them? Do you think they are the future of children’s books?

About Robbie Cheadle

Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with eleven children’s books and two poetry books.

The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.

Robbie and Michael have also written Haunted Halloween Holiday, a delightful fantasy story for children aged 5 to 9 about Count Sugular and his family who hire a caravan to attend a Halloween party at the Haunted House in Ghost Valley. This story is beautifully illustrated with Robbie’s fondant and cake art creations.

Robbie has published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.

Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.

Robbie Cheadle contributes two monthly posts to https://writingtoberead.com, namely, Growing Bookworms, a series providing advice to caregivers on how to encourage children to read and write, and Treasuring Poetry, a series aimed at introducing poetry lovers to new poets and poetry books.

In addition, Roberta Eaton Cheadle contributes one monthly post to https://writingtoberead.com called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends which shares information about the cultures, myths and legends of the indigenous people of southern Africa.

Robbie has a blog, https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com. where she shares book reviews, recipes, author interviews, and poetry.