9 Books Your Child Should Read over the School Holidays

From iPad applications to video game consoles, your child has probably been exposed to more games and activities than you ever had access to when you were their age.

Although it is important for your child to experience the latest developments and trends of the modern world, it is equally beneficial to let them appreciate the joys of one of history’s earliest forms of entertainment: reading.

In order to facilitate your child's ever evolving English learning journey, our curriculum specialists have compiled a list of recommended reads to help your child discover his or her next favourite book.

Our Recommended Reading List for Your Child

For Primary 1 & 2 Students

1. Dory Fantasmagory, Abby Hanlon

Let daring Dory and her wild imagination take you on an adventure of a lifetime! From outsmarting monsters to exacting revenge on her sister’s favourite doll, Dory is sure to thrill young readers with her crazy stories.

2. The Adventures of Miss Petitfour, Anne Michaels

While Miss Petitfour enjoys baking and eating fancy cakes, it is her sixteen cats that she loves the most. Join Miss Petitfour as she takes readers on five magical adventures with her equally eccentric felines.
 

For Primary 3 & 4 Students

1. Pax, Sara Pennypacker and Jon Klassen

In this poignant story set against the backdrop of war, readers follow the adventures of Pax and his beloved boy as they struggle to reunite after being tragically separated from each other.

2. Countdown Zero, Chris Rylander

Carson Fender might only be a student, but he is already embroiled deep in international espionage and going on the most exciting escapades.

For Primary 5 & 6 Students

1. The Land of Stories: An Author’s Odyssey, Chris Colfer

The fifth installment in this exciting fairy tale series sees the magical twins Alex and Conner attempt to recruit fairy tale superheroes from Conner’s own stories in order to defeat the Masked Man and his army of literature’s greatest villains.

2. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie

Acclaimed detective Hercule Poirot is travelling on board the luxurious Orient Express when he receives news that one of the passengers has been stabbed to death. Will Poirot be able to find the murderer before he or she strikes again?
 

For Secondary 1-2 Students

1. When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

In the space of a single day, Paul Kalanithi goes from being a ground-breaking neurosurgeon to a stage 4 lung cancer patient fighting for his life. This profoundly moving memoir celebrates the ephemeral beauty of life as the author shares how meaning can transform tragedy into a deep reflection of what it means to be truly alive.

2. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

This extensive yet enthralling read, written in light-hearted and amusing prose, is literally a brief history of life, the universe and everything else. It dates all the way back to the Big Bang and chronicles the mind-blowing events that eventually led to the rise of civilisation. Science has never been more entertaining.

Why Is Reading so Important?

Develops Linguistic Abilities

Reading is an important skill that will help your child read, write, and speak a language better. Just by reading for 20 minutes a day, your child will be exposed to about 1.8 million words of text a year.

This will strengthen your child’s grammar skills and boost their range of vocabulary, especially if they are reading books that are challenging for their age.

Builds Communication Skills and Self-Confidence

Armed with a wider range of vocabulary, your child will be able to verbalise and communicate their thoughts more accurately. This improved articulation can make a huge difference to how confidently your child presents an answer in class or makes an impromptu speech.

Improves Concentration and Focus

From browsing social media while chatting with friends or watching a television programme while having dinner, we are constantly exposed to different stimuli that divide our attention and reduce our productivity.

Compare this to reading a book – to fully absorb each detail, your child will need to devote their undivided attention to the story. This will help your child stay focused for longer periods of time and ultimately improve how well your child can concentrate on a particular task at hand.

Develops Creativity

Every book brings its reader on an adventure, which makes reading particularly enjoyable for children with vivid imaginations. Exposing your child to different genres of both factual and fictional novels will not only develop your child’s creativity, but also help them construct creative compositions more easily at school.

Challenges Analytical Skills

Following a particularly complicated plot or reading a thought-provoking book will develop your child’s critical thinking skills. These novels challenge your child’s ability to break down a storyline or assess the situation he or she is reading about.

How Does TLL Nurture the Love of Reading?

We strongly believe that tomorrow’s leaders must be today’s readers, and our TLL Libraries are a commitment to cultivating a reading habit in our students that goes beyond their academic needs.

With a total of 77,000 titles for our preschool, primary school and secondary school students to choose from when they drop by for lessons, our specially curated libraries are a labour of love, taking pride of place in each of our facilities.

As part of their English Programmes, our nursery and kindergarten students borrow books from the TLL Libraries on a weekly basis.

This is an essential part of our language lessons, as we believe that reading plays a critical role in building a strong foundation in a language. Teachers also conduct storytelling sessions for our kindergarten students, which bring each child on a little journey out of the classroom and into the magical settings within the stories.

The comprehension and cloze passage exercises in our Primary English Core Programmes are commonly based off excerpts from popular children’s books in our TLL Libraries. This makes the exercises more interesting and engaging for our students, who often proceed to browse or borrow these books for leisure reading.

Our English teachers usually find fun examples to impart proper usage of the English language to our students. We believe fun learning increases our students' interest for the subject and ability to retain more information.

The Learning Lab is now at 9 locations. Find a location that suits your needs.

If you have any questions about our programmes, please email us at enquiry@thelearninglab.com.sg or call us at 6733 8711 and we will be happy to assist you.