My Frustrations with Graded Readers- A Minor Rant

[iguanamon]

There just isn't a huge market for graded readers. So, not a lot of effort and research is going into this. Yes, as Jeff says, there's going to be a lot of rubbish out there. Also, due to copyright restrictions, much will come from the public domain and be adapted, so a lot of archaic and uncommon language may be used. That's part of the problem.

The other part of the problem is the reader's expectations. Sure, it sounds logical- "I'll start with graded readers and then, when I finish the first level, I'll move to the next level, etc, etc." Oh if it were just that simple! I've seen many people describe Assimil as a graded reader with audio. I suppose many courses could fit that definition. Sometimes it may be best to take a full plunge. Myself, I prefer to use all my abilities as an educated adult to their fullest by "jumping in and swimming even if I don't know how" (Mark Burnett). That means making and using my own parallel texts. Yeah it's not graded, you'll get it all at once, but instead of having to pause and consult the dictionary- you can glance and get the meaning. You also get to choose, to a large extent, what you wish to read and it's associated vocabulary comes along with it. If you are using this as a part of a multi-track approach (see link at the bottom), the holes will be filled in as you go.

Specifically for Spanish, the Cervantes Institute in Spain has a free set of online graded readings with clickable word definition (monolingual) at Lecturas paso a paso. Of course, there's probably something wrong with this too. There are no perfect or ideal resources. Struggle is a part of learning. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

[rlnv]

No doubt in the world of "easy readers" there is a load of rubbish out there. First off, I would have to agree with Reineke that you can't really expect a reading book to avoid unusual words entirely. It really depends entirely on the story you are reading. I have an A2 story about an adventure at sea, and there are a number of nautical terms in the story. However, dull stories are much worse than stories with a few unusual words. A truly enjoyable easy reader is hard to find, but probably worth its weight in gold. The best thing to do is look for recommendations. I'll list a few French readers I've found to be pretty enjoyable despite being made for low levels, and hopefully others could mention good readers for other languages.

Enquête Capitale by Marine Decourtis is an A1 reader with audio which actually has a pretty engaging story. CLE has a couple of Maigret stories aimed at A2 students, and I found them to be quite enjoyable, notably Maigret et la jeune morte and Maigret et la veille dame (both A2ish). Pas d'oscar pour l'assassin and Jus de chausettes are two enjoyable A2 stories by Vincent Remède. I've tried a handful of other easy readers in French, but these five books were the only readers I would recommend without hesitation. In fact, I keep mentioning these again and again in discussions of easy readers.

Good list jeffers. I actually enjoyed "Pas d'oscar pour l'assassin" and "Jus de chausettes"! lol I was even thinking of looking for regular (non-graded) books by Vincent Remède.

I also really enjoyed the six readers that I bought from CPLI, available in multiple languages. Not real page turners, but enjoyable with good story lines keeping in mind their purpose. Highly recommended for anyone wanting readers that don't suck. Just don't get the audio, it's not up to the quality of the stories.

A lot of other stuff I read, dull and dry. But they serve a purpose and make the transistion to regular books easy. Worth the pain IMO.

[reineke]

You could try with 2-5 grade readers for young Spanish-speaking children like Casa del Arbol, Judy Moody or Ramona la chinche. You can preview some of these books and see if they're at your reading level. There are also preschool-3rd grade books you can try like Jorge el curioso. Some of these are bilingual.

[Tomás]

The other part of the problem is the reader's expectations. Sure, it sounds logical- "I'll start with graded readers and then, when I finish the first level, I'll move to the next level, etc, etc." Oh if it were just that simple! I've seen many people describe Assimil as a graded reader with audio. I suppose many courses could fit that definition. Sometimes it may be best to take a full plunge. Myself, I prefer to use all my abilities as an educated adult to their fullest by "jumping in and swimming even if I don't know how" (Mark Burnett). That means making and using my own parallel texts. Yeah it's not graded, you'll get it all at once, but instead of having to pause and consult the dictionary- you can glance and get the meaning. You also get to choose, to a large extent, what you wish to read and it's associated vocabulary comes along with it. If you are using this as a part of a multi-track approach (see link at the bottom), the holes will be filled in as you go.

Good points. I got bored with pedagogical materials--courses and graded readers--at about three or four months into Spanish. I now basically just read, watch TV, take MOOC courses in Spanish, and otherwise do things that interest me, except in Spanish. Yesterday I watched the Spurs-Thunder game with the Spanish commentary turned on.

I learn new words and phrases every day by doing this. Yesterday from watching the game I learned that a time-out in basketball is "tiempo muerto". From watching the news, I learned the phrase "fracaso rotundo"--a "complete failure" (referring to Mexico's drug prohibition regime, according to a high-ranking Mexican politician).

[CarlyD]

First off, I LOVE graded readers--but yes, they're hard to find the ones that "fit" you. There was another thread here somewhere with a wonderful list of German graded readers that I ended up printing out.

For Spanish, the first ones I saw were from Santillana, going from Level 1--less than 400 words, to Level 8--over 2,500 words. I have most of the Level 1 and Level 2 and was able to read the Level 1 books some time ago, so they're probably A1. You can see them on Amazon--a couple are ¡Adiós, Papá! and La Sombra de un Fotógrafo. My main problem with them is that they are based on classics and I'm, well, more of a Scooby-Doo kind of person.

If you have Kindle, they've been coming out with quite a few graded readers either for free or $.99, and both list the level on the cover and have the Look Inside option so you can see how the first page reads. I have a number of them also, mostly the detective ones.

The Lola Lago series is very good, but possibly at a high A2 level--again, you can read the first page on Amazon. They're harder to find, but I've had good luck cruising around Amazon and picking books, then searching for them on eBay.

The bilingual readers are also very good--you can always cover up the other side if you want to work on your own translations. Here is a link to one of them on Amazon-- http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-beginners ... ge_o02_s00

[reineke]

http://www.pasajeslibros.com/libros/materias/espanol/aprendizaje-del-espanol/lecturas-graduadas/008/

http://www.casadellibro.com/libros/lecturas-graduadas-de-espanol/116004003/4/2

http://www.lecturasgraduadas.com/

http://edelsa.es/venta/index.php?route=product/category&path=67_234

http://www.alibri.es/idiomas/espanol-para-extranjeros/lecturas-graduadas-de-espanol?limit=100