Should a book contain words that are challenging to readers?

[Nicky Dexter]

A very positive response all around and definitely something I agree with. Challenging words grow your vocabulary, but not too much that makes what you are reading a massive struggle.

[missbookaholic]

books with unfamiliar words esp for children are kinda difficult. Even for adult reader it is difficult because sometimes when I'm reading a book with unfamiliar words takes me too long to read because I have to find the meaning of that unfamiliar word to relate properly with the topic. I have read the "Little shop of Happy-Ever-After" by Jenny Colgan with some scottish terms. But still worth to read I've been loving reading since then.

[Chitopogi]

It all depends on the author. Did he create the book for storytelling purposes or in language that children understand and,thus, appreciate? Or did he create his book as a language workbook? Or both? What is his objective? There is no right nor wrong. Only choices.

[Penny Lee]

Absolutely, yes! Most books (even for adults) are said to be written at a grade five reading level New words and an expanded vocabulary encourages our brains to keeping learning and "growing." While I feel that a book should not have an overwhelming amount of challenging words, a few here and there is certainly appropriate and even appreciated.

[perlaa]

Yeah I think it definitely should, a good book is one that helps you learn more and expand you way of thinking. I remember encountering my very first challenging word and getting to know its meaning gave me a new feeling of independence and intelligence.

[May-an Tinangag]

Yes, so that the readers will enhance more their vocabularies, grammar, and pronunciation. Also the readers will be familiar with the words that are not commonly used in their everyday living. They will be challenged to search for the meaning of words that are not familiar to them.

[FantasyBoy45]

As a young person myself I particularly look forward to challenging vocabulary because I feel it allows for me to learn more while doing something I love, besides that finding words you don't know and using context clues to figure out the meaning can be very enjoyable.

[uzeziq]

When I was little, I always read books levels ahead of me. I was very curious and always wanted to learn new words so I always had a dictionary nearby. It helped greatly in expanding my vocabulary. However, I ended up spending a lot of time to finish a book. So, in my opinion a book containing challenging words could be very rewarding to the reader if time is taken to check out the meaning of the unfamiliar words. On the other hand, it could make reading a very tiring act especially if the unfamiliar words are too numerous and appears in almost every sentence as though they are competing in a word battle. I think intentionally placing words that are challenging to readers in strategic places, especially in a children’s book will be highly beneficial to them.

[Storygamer88]

I prefer when words are on the borderline or so of teaching me. For example, I don't want to read a text filled with archaic words or vocabulary just for the sake of sounding different and fancy, but I also don't want super simple words throughout. Of course, variety of sentence structure helps tremendously too.

In general, I guess I'd like to at least see or learn a new word (or old, complex word I forgot) about maybe once in every 5 or 10 pages, so I occasionally feel challenged.

[Kisses]

Yes. Thats increases everyone's vocabulary.
That was useful specially for students, if they find a unfamiliar words they will look/search it in the dictionary, in this way they could easily widened their vocabulary.
This is not only for those who study, this is for everyone. Everyday we learn new things and i reading we learn new words.

[karolinka]

I love good and new words that I can add to my vocabulary. To that end, yes, I think it's good when the reader has to reach for a dictionary to look up a word.

[Ashley Nestler]

Books should absolutely contain works that are challenging to readers. As an author, I add challenging words, and I particularly enjoy it in novels. Reading hard words in action is a great way to build your vocabulary!

[Anirudh Badri]

The field of psychology believes that children can easily learn new languages. New or unfamiliar words from children's story book will widen their vocabulary.

Good point, but I would go further to say that the psychological benefits persist beyond childhood. Recently, when I was trying to teach myself German, I decided to read Harry Potter in German. Since I had read the book so many times that I could practically recite the book verbatim, I thought this would be helpful to learn new vocabulary.

I found that I was far more likely to remember words that I read here, because of the contextual understanding that was going on, far better than when I used flashcards.

[Zzaakkiiyyaa]

I think it's the best way to broaden your vocabulary. In regards to children's books, they're wired to learn new words quickly so, I believe that the more challenging the words in their books, the wider their vocabulary will be the short (and long) term.

[JanieReads]

I 100% believe that books should challenge the reader. This is especially important for young readers. There is just a very specific balance of challenging readers with words they would not normally come across, and overloading the book with words that make the book unreadable. One of my very first memories with my dad is me asking him what specific words meant in books. It was one of the ways we bonded the most because we were both readers and we always wanted to challenge ourselves. Now it is an ongoing joke between us that I used to ask him what all kinds of words mean in my books and now he has to ask me how to work all of today's technology.