Stories at bedtime

jaspercat2002

We have just started reading chapter a night books to my DS (aged 5) He is loving the Wishing chair at the moment - and we have Flat Stanley and Miss Pepperpot lined up next. These are books I remember from my childhood but have read this thread with interest and will look out for the Horrid Henry stories. He also loved 'My naughty little sister and Bad Harry' books - they are so dated but he doesn't seem to notice/care!

tiamai_d

You know, if more parents read out loud to their kids at night, their speech would be better too! You can spot the ones who don't 'shlurrr mutter mumble shlurrrr eh?'.

I LOVE reading to the boys, but DS1 who is 7 is stealing my job, he loves reading to his little brother (4) and the baby (still inutero)

They love,

Horrid Henry
Astrosaurs
Harry Potter (first 2 so far)
Golden Compass (read them all 3 in the series)
Some baby animal (Animal Ark?) series about a girl who's parents are vets.

Libary is a good place to start, but my boys love the sunday market where they can rake about and pick their own books (and it doesn't matter if they get damaged that way, they are boys and things get broken around them).

jellyhead

The magic faraway tree was the first chapter book I read to my boy, I think he was 5 but he might have been just under.

We got the audio cassettes too, read wonderfully by Kate Winslet - they're fab for long journeys, and sometimes he'd have a half hour tape on at bedtime, but he preferred to be read to, to interrupt and discuss the story when he was little.

Money_maker

We started with Enid Blytons fairy and elf type short stories, moving on to the Famous 5. Little bit of Roald Dahl and lots of scary stories (cant remember the name at the moment).

Oops, I mean Goosebumps!!

Mutter_2

Naughty_Sausage wrote: »

Hi

I have 2 DDs and oldest (5 in NOvember) loves her bed time stories.

But, we read things like the Gruffalo, snail and the whale (stuff we can read in a night). But, at what age do you think I could start reading stories over several nights (Eg Roald Dahl, Jill Murphy)?

Thanks in advance

NS x

Let them be babies yet. Don't push it.

Just don't think you might skip a page. When I tried it, my daughter would say " No, that's not what happened"

Oh, I loved those days of snuggling up.

Loopy_Lobes

I agree with Roald dahl, Horrid Henry etc. Just wanted to recommend 'Carbonel' and 'The Kingdom of Carbonel'. Fascinating stories about a magic cat that I read as a child and remembered fondly so bought them for my daughter who also loves them.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-uk&field-author=Barbara%20Sleigh

jellyhead

How old is your youngest daughter?

Longer stories might be nice sometimes, but she will probably still want the shorter stories too. My 3 year old likes to bring a pile of 3 or 4 books to bed - he'd rather read 4 'gruffalo' type stories than one long one. He'll be in the same school year as your daughter (will be 4 before school starts) and I remember from my volunteering days that teachers still read books like 'we're going on a bear hunt' (for memory) and even the hungry caterpillar (days of the week, counting).

So I'd only move onto longer stories if she is asking, having said that I got the Dahl books out of the cupboard when sorting recently, and they're in the place where I put books and clothes he will grow into 'soon'. I thought just the crocodile one to start with though. But your daughter is around 9 months older than my son, and also from casual observation I think girls are ready for longer stories before boys might be, although every child is different (before everyone shouts at me that their boys were on harry potter at age 4).

Amandaj32

This thread has made me smile. I wish I had started on reading longer books earlier. By the time I started reading longer books to DS - it was only for a short while before he was too old to be read to!

As for Harry Potter - I thought ALL kids would be interested so I tried to read it to him but he just looked soooo bored!!I was relieved because I wasn't really enjoying it myself!

Surfbabe

Amandaj32 wrote: »

By the time I started reading longer books to DS - it was only for a short while before he was too old to be read to!

I was still reading a chapter a night to my two when they were 11 or so - it had become part of the evening ritual and we read all sorts - poetry included.

astonsmummy

DS1 is way above average for his reading skills, amd is always reading anything he can get his hands on, so I have signed him up to our library (which is only about 3 mins walk from my house!) he chose 5 books on Thursday (5 because he's 5 :rotfl:)
next time I'm going to see if he wants to get a chapter book, we read together everynight, it's about the only time in the day he behaves!