The Story Tree
Books on Signed Stories are not targeted at specific age ranges. We share the view of our sponsor and supporter Seven Stories, The Centre for Children’s Books and of many of the authors whose work features on the website that putting a guide ‘reading age’ on a book may actively discourage some children from wanting to read it.
And we share their concern that the confidence of children who struggle with reading may be damaged if they feel they cannot understand books intended for their ‘age group’.
This is particularly important for children with special educational needs including autism, dyslexia, and those who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Rather than band by age, we have created – with guidance from child education experts – a more subtle approach to levels of difficulty in books, using our Story Tree.
Each world has a story tree with four interactive branches – each offering books at a different level of difficulty.The books with the simplest storylines and clearest vocabulary are offered up by clicking on the purple branch. The blue branch offers stories with slightly more complicated storylines and language, followed by the yellow and the red branch.
In the children’s section of the website, each zone offers a story tree with four interactive branches. Each branch offers books at a different level of difficulty. The easiest books are offered up by rolling the mouse over the purple branch. The blue branch offers slightly harder books, followed by the yellow branch and then the red branch, with the most complicated books. Books for older teenagers will feature in The Den section.
When you click on any branch, it offers up a selection of book covers. Clicking on the cover will reveal a brief description of the story, which is signed. And by clicking this again, you can watch (and hear) the story.
The tree within the Baby and Toddler world works slightly differently to the tree you’ll see in the other zones. Each branch still offers books at different levels of difficulty, but focussed specifically for younger children. Roll your mouse over each branch for a descriptive guide to the levels of the books. These books will also appear in other zones, always on the purple branch.
