Readers
We asked publishers to send us sample copies of readers they have published in the past 12 months or are about to publish. These are our first impressions of the readers we looked at.
Have you read any good books recently? We’ve been doing a lot of reading at the iT’s office, but more for work than pleasure. It has been an interesting experience looking at some of the new ELT readers that have been published over the past few months or that are about to be published. Many thanks to Black Cat, Burlington, Cambridge University Press, Mary Glasgow, Oxford University Press and Penguin/ Longman for sending us their books to read.
Choosing a reader for your students can be daunting, especially with so many series and titles on offer. If you want to build up a class or school library, then the task is slightly easier, but if you want all the students in your class to read the same book, then selecting the right title can be more difficult.
While
looking at the readers we were sent, it quickly became clear that the
first question you need to ask yourself is why you want your students
to read. Is it to improve their reading skills? Is it to learn something
about other cultures? Is it to introduce them to classic works of English
literature? Is it to develop their vocabulary? Or is it for several
or many of these reasons?
A reader is a book in which the language has been graded for students. Most publishers have a range of titles for different levels, but their grading systems can vary quite widely. Our first tip for choosing a reader is to check how the publisher defines the level of the reader and how that corresponds with your students’ level.
Next, there are a variety of features that readers often include. There is nothing wrong with a reader that doesn’t include these features. In many ways, a reader that contains nothing more than the text is as close to an authentic reading experience as your students will get. However, you may feel that your students need more support from the book.
The most obvious of these features is a glossary. Most readers indicate the number of headwords they include. These are the dictionary headwords that students are expected to know at each level and will range from maybe 200 headwords at elementary level to 3,000 at advanced level. Additional vocabulary is usually highlighted and included in a glossary. When you look at the reader, check to see if the glossary words are highlighted in the text and if the glossary simply lists the words or includes definitions in English or L1. We found that glossaries that only listed the words, expecting students to look them up in a dictionary, weren’t that helpful, and we preferred those that were on the actual page rather than at the back of the book.
Most readers include exercises to aid compre-hension. These usually consist of tasks to do before and after reading chapters of the book. The answer key is usually available on the Internet along with additional photocopiable material for the teacher who wants to use the book in class. Before investing in a set of readers, check to see exactly what resources are available and how useful they are. Don’t forget that while a wide range of resources can be useful, it’s possible that all your students need is a simple set of prediction and vocabulary preparation tasks before reading, and comprehension-check tasks afterwards.
An audio CD is another valuable resource. This might be a simple reading of the book, a dramatisation of the story or an interactive CD with audio and exercises. After reading the book, students might appreciate being able to listen to the text together.
Readers fall broadly into three categories: original fiction, adaptations of existing works and factual books about specific themes. Remember that, as in the “real world”, there are good and not-so-good writers of original fiction. A classic work of fiction might not be such a classic piece of writing when it is graded and edited to fit the format of a reader. And factual books can go out of date quickly.
Here are our first impressions based on the books that the seven publishers sent us.
Oxford
University Press is well-known
for its readers and has two main series: Bookworms and Dominoes. The
Bookworms series has more than 130 stories at different levels. The
lower levels feature original stories, while the higher levels are adaptations
of well-known works originally published for native speakers.
Bookworms seems to be targeted at students who are keen to read, while the Dominoes series is for younger beginner to pre-intermediate level students who need a little more in the way of motivation. We were really impressed by the Dominoes titles we saw, which included Kidnap (starter), the Sherlock Holmes story The Blue Diamond (level 1) and The Green Planet (level 2), a fascinating look at planet Earth. They are all visually interesting, colourful and easy to use, with the glossary words in bold in the text and the definitions on the same page. Activities are used to break up the stories, and there are project pages that are real projects and not just token activities. On the audio side, the CDs sounded very professional and were fun to listen to.
The Bookworms titles we read were Sister Love and Other Crime Stories (level 1) and Robinson Crusoe (level 2). While Dominoes includes the glossary with the text, Bookworms has a glossary at the end of the book with English definitions of selected words that are not highlighted in the text. The books start with an introduction to the book and the author. There are also exercises to do both before and after reading, and projects at the end.
At higher levels, we looked at A Tangled Web, an excellent collection of short stories by writers such as Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Maeve Binchy, V. S. Naipaul and Somerset Maugham. These are not abridged or simplified in any way, and there are both classic and modern stories. Each story opens with a paragraph about the life of the author and a paragraph that acts as a lead-in to the story. In the text, some marked words and expressions are defined at the end of the story. Also at the end is a series of discussion questions and a language focus section in which students have to explain expressions in their own words, using the story as the context. The stories are difficult and are obviously for advanced students, but they are short and therefore accessible, well-written and enjoyable to read.
Black
Cat is a big name in the world
of ELT readers and they have several series of readers including Easyreads,
a new collection of readers with a cross-curricular approach. We focussed
on the books in their Reading and Training series, aimed at adolescents
and adults. These look and feel fantastic, and are great for students
preparing for PET or KET, as they include exam-style exercises.
At the lower end we looked at The Fisherman and His Soul by Oscar Wilde. The illustrations in the book are stunning, and it comes with an enhanced CD that includes an audio version of the book and interactive exercises that were fun to do. The book is full of surprises. Would you expect to find a whole section devoted to “Aestheticism – the cult of beauty” in your average reader?
Black Cat’s choice of titles is interesting. At a slightly higher level, we looked at Jack the Ripper and The Merchant of Venice. Here the level is judged as pre–First Certificate and the tasks are challenging as a result. The higher level justifies the choice of Shakespeare, and Jack the Ripper might just be morbid enough to appeal to teens, though both choices seem to be aimed at an older audience.
As with the Oxford Dominoes readers, the glossary is on the page with the text, which is a great help and makes reading much easier than looking up words at the back of the book. There are lots of exercises, including listening exercises, throughout the books. There are also some Internet projects that use sites you can access from the Black Cat website.
At the more advanced level we looked at Blanche Malvern’s retelling of Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence. The text is well-adapted and interspersed with sections on life in the mines, the writings of Freud related to the Oedipus complex, and the role of women at the time, so students get to know more of the social context of the novel. There are excellent activities throughout the book to exploit the text. These make use of a wide variety of FCE activity types, including true/false and multiple choice comprehension questions, gap fills and word-building exercises.
What is slightly confusing with these readers is their grading system. The beginner level is labelled as B1 (exam preparation for PET), while the pre-intermediate level is labelled as B2 (FCE, Trinity grade 7). So make sure you look at the level carefully before choosing a title.
The
covers of Burlington’s series
of readers don’t exactly invite you to pick them up and start reading,
but they are worth it. Of all the readers we looked at, these were the
most clearly labelled as being for a specific market. We were looking
at the titles for Spain, and apart from being labelled for specific
years in the education system, they included word lists in Castilian,
Catalan, Galician and Basque.
The low-level readers had fun picture questions at the end of pages, but some of the vocabulary and language seemed out of place for first- and second-year ESO students, and the book had no exercises or audio.
For the third and fourth years of ESO we looked at Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and a book called Underwater Adventure. We weren’t sure how interested Spanish teenagers would be in Dorian Gray and, although the underwater adventure was gripping, it felt a bit more appropriate for younger teens.
For Bachillerato students in Spain there’s Cervantes Meets Shakespeare by Ramón Ybarra Rubio, the story of a teenage girl who moves with her parents from the United States to England. While doing a project on Cervantes and Shakespeare, the writers appear to her in dreams and fantasies. They give her information about their lives, and through this information she also receives moral lessons about her own life.
The English in Silas Mariner by George Eliot adapted by Julie McDonald reads naturally, although, as with all long novels, it suffers from the cuts that have to be made to reduce the length and bring down the level. Students get to read a classic, but is it really a classic without the writing that made it so?
Cambridge
English Readers is a series of original fiction from Cambridge
University Press graded into six levels from beginner to advanced. These
deal with “contemporary topics and themes”. There’s no
indication of the age group these readers are for, but they seem most
appropriate for young adults and older students.
The higher-level books scored well with our reading group for two reasons. First, they are original fiction. After reading several classics that had been chopped and cut, leaving the impression that little of any real literary value remained, it was good to read original fiction designed for students of English.
Second, there are no worksheets, comprehension questions or projects in the book. The philosophy seems to be that if you’re interested in the story, you don’t need to answer endless comprehension questions, especially if you’re reading alone rather than in a class.
In the Shadow of the Mountain is a great read, full of mystery, adventure, romance, history and travel – all dealt with lightly and naturally. Frozen Pizza and Other Stories is a collection of eight short stories based on life in the United Kingdom. They are good short stories; the only problem is that, while they’re obviously intended to confront issues in modern British society – hooliganism, the gutter press, deprived kids living on housing estates, middle-class families who host foreign students but who never cook or eat together, etc. – they tend to highlight every negative stereotype imaginable!
Writing books for lower levels that deal with “con-temporary topics and themes” is a more challenging task when using limited vocabulary, and not all the Cambridge readers we looked at manage to pull it off. There are too many stereotypes in Don’t Stop Now (A1 beginner/elementary) and Next Door to Love (level 2). However, Penny Hancock’s Within High Fences stands out as a good piece of writing that deals with issues such as immigration, authority and relationships.
It was hard not to feel that at this level students do need some backup to help get them through the book. Although the low-level readers start by placing the story in a specific location using a map and giving a description of the main characters, it would have been nice to have had something more in the actual book. There are resources for teachers at the website, including a photocopiable worksheet for each title with activities to do before and after reading, and answer keys.
Penguin
Books has been in the publishing business for a long time
and we were looking forward to seeing their latest ELT readers, which
they describe on the cover as “simplified texts designed in association
with Longman”.
There are seven levels, from Easystarts (200 words) to Advanced (3,000 words). Each book starts with an introduction. There are exercises to do before, while and after you read. There’s also a word list at the back. You can download PDF fact sheets with information about the book and author as well as some activities from the website.
What first struck us was the range of genres available. There are adaptations of classic novels, factual books, original fiction, biographies, history books and readers based on recent movies such as The Interpreter and Cinderella Man. Many of the books, including The Interpreter, come with an audio CD. The Penguin collection is a great place to start if you’re thinking of building a library because you’ll end up with an incredibly diverse collection of books.
While some students would be interested in the history of printing, mathematics, navigation, guns and engines in Inventions That Changed the World (level 4), it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. On the other hand, titles such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (level 1) and Notting Hill (level 3) will have a broader appeal.
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells retold by David Maule (level 5) is a topical title, tying in with last year’s film starring Tom Cruise. The original novel was written in 1898 and is somewhat outdated. Tom Cruise can jump into a car in the film, but in Wells’s book the characters use horses and carts to get around. This could be either a revelation or a disappointment to students attracted by the title but who expect some-thing more sophisticated in terms of “special effects”.
Teenage
students who are looking for TV and film tie-ins will probably find
what they’re looking for in the readers published by Scholastic/
Mary Glasgow. Titles include Billy Elliot, Batman Begins,
a photo story version of the hit TV series Malcolm in the Middle, and
various Buffy the Vampire Slayer stories for different levels. By using
well-known modern stories taken from movies and TV shows, younger students
are likely to be more familiar with and motivated by these titles. Students
may already know the stories if they have seen the film or series, which
might help. Also, because the pictures are stills from the movies and
series, they look great.
All the books in the series follow the same format. There are pages that introduce students to the story’s characters and settings. At the end of the book there are fact files related to the themes of the story as well as self-study exercises. There are activities to do before reading to help with vocabulary, and after reading to check comprehension. New words are listed for students to translate or define, but these are not highlighted in the text. Teachers can download additional worksheets from the website.
These books instantly appealed to us, possibly because they’re created by a company that publishes magazines for teenagers and have a topical feel to them. It’s obvious from the titles and themes that the publishers know what young people are interested in and want to read. The books are colourful and designed well. They also have a nice feel to them, and are printed on good-quality paper.
We have to confess an interest in the Mary Glasgow readers because this magazine’s editor has just finished writing a beginner-level reader for them based on a manga activity that first appeared in our very own biTs magazine. However, Mary Glasgow also publishes competing magazines and resource material for teachers, so rest assured that our evaluation of their readers has been impartial!
We’re grateful to all the publishers who sent us readers to review. If you want to find out more about them, you can visit their websites listed below or go to www.its-teachers.com, where you’ll find links to all the relevant sites.
You will find links to all the publishers mentioned in this article below.