Eleven Plus Exams Recommended English Reading List

Hurricane Summer - Robert Swindells     

A Long Way Home - Ann Turnbull     

Fireweed - Jill Paton Walsh     

Scribbleboy - Phillip Ridley     

Johnnie's Blitz - Bernard Ashley     

The Bolphin Crossing - Jill Paton Walsh     

Tom's Private War - Robert Leeson     

Carrie's War - Nina Bawden     

The Endless Steppe - Esther Hautzig     

Billy the Kid - Micahel Morpurgo     

Stormchaser - Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell     

No Friend of Mine - Ann Turnbull     

Red, White and Blue: Finding Out the Hard Way - Robert Leeson     

Tom's War Patrol - Robert Leeson      

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Judith Kerr     

Beyond the Deepwoods - Paul Steward and Chris Riddell     

Midnight Over Sanctaphrax - Paul Steward and Chris Riddell     

Tess of the d’urbervilles – Thomas Hardy     

Snow Geese – William Fiennes    

Mill on the floss – George Eliot     

Other Books by the following authors:

It is recommended that you select a single page from any of the following books as the extract in the English exam is approximately this length. Get your child to read the extract, then probe questions on the comprehension of the text, single out specific words and get your child to spell it and explain the meaning of that word. Write out a single paragraph form the extract, emitting ALL of the punctuation and get your child to insert it. As it not a requirement for your child to read the whole book, www.classicreading.com allows you o download extracts from various classic books.
 

•    Charlotte Bronte

•    HG Wells

•    H H Munro (Saki)

•    Thomas Hardy

•    Anthony Trollope

•    Bronte Sisters

•    Captain Marryat

•    Charles Dickens

•    Charles Kingsley

•    Elizabeth Gaskell

•    George Eliot

•    Graham Green

•    Herman Melville

•    James Fenimore Alcott

•    R D Blackmore

•    R L Stevenson

•    Robert Graves

•    Rudyard Kipling

•    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

•    Ursula Le Guin

It is recommended that students sitting their 11+ should be reading between forty five minutes to an hour daily in order to improve their comprehension and more importantly to expand their vocabulary.

I always recommend my pupils to highlight words that they have not come across before. Write it down. Look up the meaning of that word and write it down. Then look up two to four related words with the same or similar meaning. Finally, construct a sentence for each of your new words.