Reading is a critical skill for success in school and in life. Let’s create an easy to learn environment with high quality children’s age appropriate books, and help our children build a good reading habit!
Reading Comprehension for Sixth Graders(Focus on Informational Materials)
Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose. The selections in Recommended Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition, by grade eight, students read one million
words annually on their own, including a good representation of grade-level-appropriate narrative and expository text (e.g., classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, online information).
In grade six, students continue to make progress toward this goal.
Structural Features of Informational Materials
1. Identify the structural features of popular media (e.g., newspapers, magazines, online information) and use the features to obtain information.
2. Analyze text that uses the compare-and-contrast organizational pattern.
Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
3. Connect and clarify main ideas by identifying their relationships to other sources and related topics.
4. Clarify an understanding of texts by creating outlines, logical notes, summaries, or reports.
5. Follow multiple-step instructions for preparing applications (e.g., for a public library card, bank savings account, sports club, league membership).
Expository Critique
6. Determine the adequacy and appropriateness of the evidence for an author’s conclusions.
7. Make reasonable assertions about a text through accurate, supporting citations.
8. Note instances of unsupported inferences, fallacious reasoning, persuasion, and propaganda in text.
Books for Sixth Graders
Trophy Kid, Or, How I Was Adopted by the Rich and Famous
Joe, a war orphan, was adopted by movie stars when he was little. Now his parents want to show off how far he’s come by having him “write” his own story, with the help of a ghostwriter, of course.
Ring of Rocamadour
Red (crimson officially), isn’t exactly an inconspicuous color when one is trying to solve a mystery — but that’s the color of the sleuths’ school uniform blazers. With limited knowledge of math, literature, religion, art and “street smarts” they try to solve the puzzle-mystery of a grandfather’s legacy.
Series: Red Blazer Girls
Princess Plot
Jenna can’t believe it when she wins a starring movie part… even more unbelievable is that her mother lets her take it! However, all is not as it seems as Jenna travels outside the castle walls and uncovers the real reasons behind winning it.
Darkwood
When Annie must journey in to the forest of Howland, a place the townspeople do not dare go, out of fear of the mysterious “kinderstalks,” she learns that there are far worse things lurking in the dark.
My Name Is Henry Bibb
Based on a true story, this book reveals the struggles of slaves through the eyes of a boy named Henry Bibb, a plantation slave in Kentucky who eventually escapes to Canada. Henry devotes the rest of his life to helping other slaves and ending slavery.
Lifting the Sky
Blue, tired of moving from place to place since her father left, feels at home in this mystical Wyoming ranch, with Mam as the hired hand. Here, she discovers she has a special gift of healing that benefits both animals and humans.
Toby Alone
On the bark of the Tree you’ll find 2 millimeter high people with their own tiny civilization! But when Toby’s father announces his discovery that the Tree is alive, nobody wants to believe him and the whole family is exiled to the Lower Branches.
Closed For the Season
Logan and his parents have just moved into an old house. The last person who lived there was murdered. Logan and his weird neighbor try to solve the case, finding clues that lead them to a deserted amusement park where danger awaits.
A Taste for Red
Svetlana wears black clothes, eats only red foods, sleeps under her bed, and can send her thoughts into people’s minds. So does her science teacher, Ms. Larch. Are they both vampires?
1001 Cranes
With her parents sorting out their marriage back home and reluctantly spending the summer with her grandparents folding origami crane wedding displays, Japanese American Angela Kato meets a local skateboarder, discovering that relationships can get pretty complicated.
Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel
Mike Stellar’s bad day at school only gets worse when his parents tell him they have to pack for Mars right away. Mike’s parents are up to something, and the only person who believes him is a girl who never stops talking.
Switch
Fabulously wealthy Thomas Arnold David (Tad) is hoping to spend another fun summer on safari in Africa. Last year one of the guides was eaten by a tiger. Then Tad wishes he is someone else and awakens to find himself trapped in a horrible carnival world inhabited by criminals.
Genie Scheme
Through an act of kindness, Janna stumbles upon a genie who grants her every wish. She eventually discovers that material wealth isn’t everything and decides to make her wishes count for something good.
Confetti Girl
Since her mom died, Lina’s dad fills the house with hundreds of books, while she collects socks. The two of them make an odd pair. Meanwhile she and her best friend have lots to figure out in middle school—like what happens when the boy you have a crush on likes you back?
Entomological Tales of Augustus T. Percival: Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone
Uncle Augustus T. Percival has developed a most un-Victorian compulsion: He must eat bugs. His niece Petronella can overlook this unfortunate habit, as she has a kidnapping case to solve. If only her uncle would stop eating the clues!
Faith, Hope, and Ivy June
Ivy June’s life in the country and Catherine’s life in the city are as different as day is to night. When they participate in a school exchange program, the girls soon find out that when loved ones are at risk, they are more alike then they ever realize.
Word Nerd
He’s a nerd with an overprotective mother but defying her by making friends with an ex-con, and going with that ex-con to a Scrabble tournament starts Ambrose’s life down a different path.
Heart of a Shepherd
Everything in Ignatius’ life starts to fall apart when his father is deployed to Iraq. An even bigger worry is whether he will be able to run their ranch in Oregon with his grandparents until his father returns.
My Vicksburg
Claire Louise and her family live in Vicksburg, the Confederate South, during the 47 days of “siege” by the Union Army in 1863. Her brother, a Union Doctor, asks her to hide a wounded Confederate soldier and that puts them all in danger.
Mudville
Roy and his foster brother, Sturgis are avid baseball players — Roy, a catcher and Sturgis, a pitcher. The rains have stopped after 22 years. It’s time for Moundville and Sinister Bend to have a rematch baseball game so the boys and their friends form a team and challenge their long time rivals. Batter up!
Farwalker’s Quest
Twelve-year-old Ariel and her best friend, Zeke, are just about to start training for their life’s job when they find an ancient, mysterious relic: a “telling dart”. They go on a perilous journey into danger and their destiny trying to find its meaning.
Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival
Lightning chases the Starker family. Almost everyone has been killed by lightning strikes. Newton is the last one in the family line and he is determined to stay alive.
After we have done some research, we recommend the following books for sixth graders by Amazon’s review rankings.