Do NOT Let Your Children Read These Books!

Getting middle school students to read can be tricky, but some books can help motivate them to read and become better readers. Graphic novels and comic books can be just those gateway books they need!

What?! Not let kids read some books?! I thought we were supposed to let them foster a love of reading and allow them to read anything. That is exactly what I try to do with my children, and some books are better than others at leading the way to the path of reading.

My 12-year old son has fallen deep into the "I don't know what to read" phase. It has hit him hard. As a matter of fact, at Christmas I had no clue what type of books to buy him. I struggled and struggled until I remembered the look in his eye as we entered the comic bookstore.

There they were, shelves and shelves of books about his favorite superheros all in one spot, and none of them were the babyish books he remembered. He purchased a comic book with his own money! He was in heaven, and I was one happy mom!

So, why is it OK to read comic books and graphic novels? If these reasons don't convince you, I don't know what will!

Motivation

This is a no-brainer! If my 12-year old son will read without me telling him to, I have won. If graphic novels and comic books get him reading, OK! I'll take it!
Getting middle school students to read can be tricky, but some books can help motivate them to read and become better readers. Graphic novels and comic books can be just those gateway books they need!

Gateway Books

These books lead to wanting to read other books. There are several series of books that have made their stories into graphic novels. Once they do that, children will actually read the real novels somewhere along the way. These Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels bring back these old favorites to a new group of children. (Thank you to my good friend Sarah from Mrs. Hankinson's Class for these pictures of her daughter!)


Enhancing Reading Skills

Have you ever read a graphic novel or comic book? These books are full of inference skills. Since there is only conversation in the story, you really have to look at the pictures and read between the lines. Not a super easy task for many! This Minecraft book I found on a 5th grader's desk show how much they really have to think about what is going on.

The vocabulary in these books also can be quite higher level. Once children read and understand those words, they will continue to use them in different ways. The onomatopoeia in comic books and graphic novels really do help tell the story!

Fluency

We all know that reading more increases fluency. Since graphic novels and comic books are written as dialogue, readers can practice reading them aloud to help with fluency.

Overall, reading graphic novels and comic books are win-win for everyone! Whatever I can do to get my child {and students} to read independently helps everyone in my book! So, let them read those graphic novels and comic books! They will thank you for it later!

Speaking of later, pin this post to come back to later!
Getting middle school students to read can be tricky, but some books can help motivate them to read and become better readers. Graphic novels and comic books can be just those gateway books they need!



5 comments

  1. This post sums up so much of my feelings about kids and reading. Thanks for bringing to light the benefits of graphic novels. I truly hope more teachers and parents will be willing to consider them.

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    1. I definitely wanted to bring that to light for so many teachers and parents. Sometimes it just takes a nudge to get adolescents reading and never stop!

      Andrea

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  2. Sing it sister! Great post! Sharing in a bit!

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    1. Thank you for sharing! Kids really need to find what they want to read before they will move on to truly enjoy reading.

      Andrea

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  3. Great post! Totally agree - graphic novels area great genre and it's so important for kids to find books they want to read!!

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