Our team has selected 50 recommended books for 5 and 6 year olds. Top up your Year 1 reading collections with our hand-picked list of storytime favourites, laugh-out-loud picture books, animal stories, early chapter books, illustrated poetry collections, non-fiction texts and more.
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Year 1 is a delightful year group with which to share books and at the moment there is a brilliant range of engaging books available for this age. Often at the ages of 5 and 6, children are learning to read short texts independently, while still relying on strong visual elements. Many Y1 children treasure storytimes when adults read aloud, and shared reading experiences remain an important part of language and literacy development both in the classroom and at home. Children at this age often love handling books, and make a bee-line for texts that offer engaging illustrations, interactive elements or memorable characters. Children in Year 1 are increasingly able to identify themes of interest and empathise with characters in familiar settings. Many 5-6 year olds begin to be able to sustain attention for longer stories that take place over a number of sittings, making early chapter books an appealing option for storytime.
For this reading list, we’ve carefully selected a balance of different types of books for reading for pleasure in Year 1. Some of the stories in our collection feature larger-than-life characters that will cause a giggle, like the wide-eyed bear in The Bear Who Stared or the hairy, grizzly, honey-loving father in My Dad is a Grizzly Bear.Animal characters feature heavily in the collection too, with some given delightful personalities like the hilarious duo in very popular Rabbit and Bear books, while others explore the deep connection between children and animals, like Michael Morpurgo’s Dolphin Boy.
Picked out specially for enjoyable storytimes with 5-6 year olds, some of the books on the list lend themselves especially well to being read out loud. Rhyming books like Stick Man or Squishy McFluff are great choices. Others offer a quick win for a super-fun storytime full of zany laughter, like Will Mabbit’s whacky picturebook I Can Only Draw Worms or the witty humour of Simon Bartram’s Man on the Moon, which is always a big hit in the classroom. We’ve also included some classic stories for Year 1 on the list, such as David McKee’s marvellously playful Not Now Bernard and Jill Tomlinson’s much-loved The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark.
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