In the Zone

by Tony Norman

Published 1 January 2010
Callum dreams of playing football for City. A City scout is at Callum’s cup final match. It’s the last few minutes of the game, and Callum has been given a penalty that could win his team the game. Will he beat the keeper? Jazz is in goal against Callum. He also dreams of playing for City one day. Will he save Callum’s shot?

Each book in the set of 14 titles in the Travellers series contains 2-3 very short and simple stories. Compiling the stories in this way creates the appearance of a 'real' book, which will help to make the reader feel less self-conscious about reading something 'specialised'.

This hi-lo series for struggling and reluctant readers has been written for children aged between 9 and 13 years, whose current reading age is between 5 and 8 years. These age-appropriate short reads have 32 pages and are written by talented authors writing stories with relatable characters. They incorporate a large font size and text separated into bite-sized chunks, along with carefully considered letter and paragraph spacing that can reduce visual stress. The series has plenty of practice at one level, allowing consolidation of learning before moving on to more challenging reads. The vocabulary list of tricky words can aid comprehension before reading the book.