A Guide for Parents
Institute of Education
Welcome to Cambridge Reading Adventures! Cambridge Reading Adventures is an exciting reading scheme for children learning to read English in countries all over the world. From first steps to advanced reading, these delightful stories and nonfiction texts will capture your child’s imagination while guiding them to becoming a confident, independent reader. The series has been created by Cambridge University Press in partnership with the International Literacy Centre at the UCL Institute of Education, the leading authority on Primary reading.
How it Works Cambridge Reading Adventures consists of 90 high-quality books, carefully graded into 11 bands. By progressing through the series, new readers will steadily gain in confidence and ability, whatever their language background, with the goal of becoming fluent and able to enjoy reading independently. The series includes both fiction and non-fiction books covering a wide variety of topics. Stories are set in international contexts, ranging from traditional fables and animal tales to contemporary adventures. In addition, non-fiction titles feature accessible explanations of technology, science and the natural world.
Why Choose Cambridge Reading Adventures? Cambridge Reading Adventures gives children, together with parents and teachers, the most effective means possible to learn and develop reading skills. Here are three main reasons:
1
Enjoy
2
Learn
3
Progress
Skilfully written and beautifully illustrated, these are books that children all over the world will enjoy and want to read again and again.
Every book has been written and developed in collaboration with Primary reading experts at the UCL Institute of Education to fully support children learning to read.
Carefully graded into 11 book bands, the series guides each reader along an enjoyable journey to literacy.
All of the books in the series are designed to link into the relevant stage of the Primary curriculum and cover topics and themes that support your child’s wider learning. Notes at the back of each book highlight the key aspects of spelling, grammar and comprehension featured in the text and suggest ways to discuss what you have just read with your child.
Making Reading Fun Regular reading has a big effect on educational progress and children who read for pleasure are likely to do better at school than their peers. Making time to read with your child is an investment in their education and future. The best way to encourage regular reading at home is to make it a positive experience for both you and your child. Here are our suggestions for making sure your child’s home reading is happy and enriching.
Read Regularly Little and often is definitely the best approach with young readers. Why not set aside 10 or 15 minutes of reading time each day? Soon your reading time will be something both you and your child look forward to – the start of a daily reading adventure!
Get Comfortable Find somewhere free from distractions. Giving your child your complete attention will help them learn how to focus and enjoy reading.
Be Positive While your child is reading, try not to interrupt them if they get things wrong. Let them finish a sentence or paragraph and then go back over anything you think is important.
Work it out Together When you do choose to go back over unfamiliar words, help your child to think about how they could work out the meaning for themselves. Spell the word out using the letter sounds or phonics. Encourage your child to think about what word would make sense as part of the sentence. Ask whether something in the illustrations could help.
Take Turns With very young readers in particular, it can be helpful to take turns in reading sentences, paragraphs and pages. This keeps the story flowing while making sure your child gets plenty of opportunities to practise.
Build Confidence Make sure the books you read with your child are not too difficult. When children lose the flow of a story and find more than one in ten words hard, they can become reluctant to read. The aim is to enjoy reading, so build confidence and engagement by choosing books your child can read with ease.
Read Favourites Again and Again Children love to read stories they have read before. Young children in particular will read and re-read their favourites many times. This helps to build confidence, speed and accuracy in their reading.
Praise Frequently Children enjoy the feeling of success. Praise for even the smallest achievements will help to spur them on. If your child has a school reading diary, write a positive comment in it each time they read with you.
Talk About the Story Talk to your child about the books you read together. Not only will this increase their enjoyment of reading but it will also help to improve their comprehension skills. We suggest questions in the back of each book that you can use to start a discussion.
Read Everything Around You Take your reading outside of the home by encouraging your child to read things like road signs, shop names, street names and food packaging labels. This will improve both their reading skills and their awareness of the world around them.
Our Authors Cambridge Reading Adventures authors have been carefully selected for their expertise and experience in children’s writing. Our international line-up of contributors includes award-winning writers and renowned photographers and illustrators:
Lauri Kubuitsile Lauri has published books and short stories across the world. She has gained numerous awards, twice winning the pan-African Golden Baobab prize for children’s literature and was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize.
Ian Whybrow Ian is a prolific writer of children’s books. Probably best known for the million-selling series Harry and His Bucketful of Dinosaurs, which has been adapted into an animated television series, his books have been translated into many languages and published all over the world.
Claire Llewellyn Claire was an editor of children’s nonfiction for over a decade before becoming an award-winning writer. She has won the Times Education Supplement Award as well as the English 4-11 Book Award and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Prize.
Jonathan and Angela Scott Jonathan and Angela have won many accolades including the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and have been named as Canon Ambassadors in recognition of their photographic expertise.
What is Book Banding? The Cambridge Reading Adventures series is built around the book bands developed by the International Literacy Centre, part of UCL’s Institute of Education. Books in the series are divided into 11 colourcoded bands, gradually increasing in complexity, length and range of vocabulary. Within each band, benchmark titles allow teachers to assess your child’s progress and check they are ready to move up to the next band. However, books within each band can be read in any order and it is not necessary to read them all before moving to the next stage. In this way, book banding provides a flexible approach to guided reading that focuses on the needs of the individual reader. This means your child progresses at their own pace and can choose the titles they want to read, which encourages an enjoyment of reading for its own sake.
Colour Band
No. of Titles
Pink A
9
Pink B
9
Red
10
Yellow
8
Blue
9
Green
8
Orange
8
Turquoise
8
Purple
7
Gold
7
White
7
Features of the Colour Bands
§
The Pink-Green bands specify high frequency words.
§
All books include a word count and interest words.
§
Resources within each book band will include specific links to Cambridge International Examinations, IPC and PYP detailed within the teacher notes found in the back of each book.
§
Every book, as a minimum, includes coverage of 2 Cambridge International Examinations syllabus requirements.
§
Other books within the individual bands, where not directly applicable to other syllabuses, will support students’ wider learning in other primary subjects.
Pink A and Pink B Intended for new readers, Pink A and Pink B books support a child initially learning to use a book. They feature colourful illustrations to support the story, highly predictable text and word counts of around 30 to 60 words in total.
Red In the Red Band, a sense of story begins to be developed. There are more challenging sentence structures and less repetition, but still lots of supportive illustrations. Non-fiction titles in the Red Band reinforce familiar language patterns through themes that appeal to the interests and understanding of young children. These books are also slightly longer and help children to extend their word knowledge.
Yellow Yellow Band stories have longer plots to support young readers in developing the skills to link and relate subject matter. They include longer sentences and a wider range of vocabulary. Books in this band start to place more emphasis on understanding stories by reading rather than relying on illustrations to convey meaning. Repeated words are used as a dramatic device rather than a way to build vocabulary knowledge.
Blue Blue Band stories become a little more complex, with several characters and episodes within one story to support the development of comprehension skills. In non-fiction texts, the vocabulary is more technically specific but illustrations are used to support less commonly used words, giving opportunities for readers to build word-reading power and knowledge of spelling patterns.
Green Titles usually feature several characters and story events are more developed, often lasting several pages. Longer, more demanding words require readers to apply wordsolving skills flexibly, while longer sentence structures focus on the use of punctuation. Topic-specific vocabulary is used, with moderate support from the illustrations and new words are often repeated to aid learning.
Orange Band Stories in Orange Band books are longer than in previous bands, featuring more events and greater complexity. There is more text on each page and sentence structures are more challenging. Illustrations are used to support just one aspect of the story on each page. Children will recognise a large number of the high-frequency words used in this band, helping them to become fluent and develop their understanding.
Turquoise Band Turquoise Band books include extended descriptions of places and people that offer new challenges to reading with phrasing and expression. They feature less common vocabulary that requires children to use their knowledge of spelling patterns. The non-fiction books in this band introduce maps, charts and diagrams, while glossaries and indexes help children learn to navigate information alphabetically.
Purple Band Purple Band books, introduce readers to stories told from the character’s viewpoint, giving opportunities to discuss motivation and response. Story language develops further, with many occurrences of phrases found in traditional tales and story-telling, such as ‘Long, long ago’ and ‘Once upon a time’. The Purple Band includes simple chapter books for the first time and non-fiction books provide more in-depth information and technical vocabulary.
Gold Band Gold Band books are for children approaching independence in predicting and evaluating the development of the story. Books with chapters build tension, giving the opportunity for more sustained reading and texts become longer to match the growing ‘reading stamina’. Gold Band books include more demanding language structures and illustrations now offer only general support to the story.
White Band White Band books are for children who are becoming confident independent readers. The stories are engaging and more complex than those in previous bands, encouraging children to ask and explore ‘why?’ questions. Readers encounter more complex sentences that include several clauses, with a range of more advanced grammar such as “we’re” and “they’re”.
Cambridge Reading Adventures For further information on the Cambridge Reading Adventures series, please visit education.cambridge.org/cra Pink A
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Jamila Finds a Friend The Sun is Up Packing my Bag A Hot Day Arif Goes Shopping Water Games Animal Homes Please Stop, Sara!
10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
My Dad is a Builder The Last Lemon Our Den Leela can Skate Omar’s First Day at School Where do they Grow? Who Lays Eggs? At the Market Looking After Animals
15. 16. 17. 18.
Pink B
Red
19. In the Sea 20. Look! It’s Baby Duck 21. The Enormous Watermelon 22. Omar can Help 23. Leopard and his Spots 24. Seagull 25. Bedtime on the Farm 26. Houses and Homes 27. The Weather Today 28. Our Senses
Yellow
29. Little Tiger Hu can Roar! 30. Late for School 31. Diego Fandango 32. Oh Bella! 33. My School 34. Playgrounds 35. Stars 36. A House for Snail
Blue
37. A Day at the Museum 38. Lost! 39. Suli’s Big Race 40. It’s Much Too Early! 41. My First Train Trip 42. Making a Car 43. On the Track 44. All Kinds of Plants 45. The Pumpkin Monster
Green
46. The Lion and the Mouse 47. Turtle is a Hero 48. Hide and Seek 49. Take Zayan with You! 50. Baking Bread 51. A Drop of Rain 52. Big Bugs 53. Dressing for the Weather
Orange
54. The Best Little Bullfrog in the Forest 55. For Today, For Tomorrow 56. Omar in Trouble 57. The Great Inventor 58. Super Malls 59. Town Underground 60. Life on the Reef 61. Sang Kancil and Crocodile
Turquoise
62. Sang Kancil and the Tiger 63. The Great Jewelled Egg Mystery 64. Sinbad Goes to Sea 65. Power Cut 66. Clever Computers 67. How Chocolate is Made 68. Draw the World 69. Motorcycles
70. 71. 72. 73. 74.
Purple
Pterosaur! King Fox Sandstorm Sinbad and the Roc Ships, Boats and Things that Float 75. The Book of World Facts 76. Going on a Plane
Gold
77. Rags to Bags 78. Tefo and the Lucky Football Boots 79. Yu and the Great Flood 80. Lost at Sea 81. Scarface: The Real Lion King 82. Animals of the Ice Age 83. Giants of the Ocean
White
84. The Silk Road 85. The Great Escape 86. Mei and the Pirate Queen 87. Sticks and Bricks and Bits of Stone 88. The Great Migration 89. The Mobile Continent 90. Earthquakes