Who's Who and Who's New: summer reading

Hi everyone! It's Michaela from Reading Royalty!

Whether it's students in your class or your own children, we've all come across a reluctant reader. It seems like nothing will ever change their opinions on reading, making completing summer reading an extremely difficult and stressful topic for parents and teachers everywhere. Here are some tips that may help:

Make it a Game:

Who doesn't love a game? To help motivate reluctant readers, I've created a FREE reading BINGO board! Some kids thrive on competition - so make it a challenge! The challenges are silly, fun, and include reading a joke book with an accent or read a scary story with a flashlight.

Grab it for free in my TPT store!

Connect Books to Movies:

This is a huge motivator! So many amazing books are turned into movies. Read the books with your child and then watch the movie and talk about similarities and differences. I know that I LOVE to read books before I watch the movie and then compare. Talking about books is so much fun.. and you don't have to make a Venn diagram (it is Summer vacation after all!)

Read High Interest Books:

Sometimes reluctant readers just haven't found the right book yet! This has happened with a few of my students. They HATED reading.. but once they found that *one* book, they were hooked! That book is different for every child. Let them choose what they'd like to read, explore different authors, series, and genres. Expose them to graphic novels, joke books, short stories, poetry, etc. You never know what might finally pique their interest!

Share Your Love of Reading:

This is a really important part of showing children how important reading is to their lives, even as adults. Seeing other people read and share their positive feelings toward reading will help them foster their own love of reading. Whether it's the newspaper, a magazine, reading a book together, or reading aloud, nothing is too little!

Thanks for reading!

Michaela Almeida

Hi, Queen of the Jungle here. I'm so glad to be a guest blogger once again. I can't believe it is almost the end of the year for us here in our school district. In many districts across the country, this may be their last week of school. What a whirlwind this year had been.

Since we are heading into the summer, we know that many times our students experience a loss of skills during the break. I like to call this the Summer Skills Slip. They are busy enjoying vacation with family and friends and don't want to think about math or reading. Our hope as teachers is that we can get them to do some things over the summer that will help kids retain some of the skills they learn during the year.

At home, parents can do some fun activities that help support these skills. In fact, they can be done with items they find all around the house. There are many activities that support language arts, math and even science skills. To help reinforce math skills how about sharing the following activity with parents?

Paper Plate Pantry Math

Tape up paper plates next to the pantry or on the pantry door. On each paper plate, post a set of problem solving questions that your child must solve.

For Example the picture above has the following plates:

Plate #1 - Pick two cans of vegetables. Which can weighs more? How much more does it weigh than the other can?

Paper Plate #2 – Find three of your favorite items. Look at their calories. Put them in order of greatest to least calories.

Paper Plate #3 – Pick one box of cereal. How much sugar is in two servings of cereal? If you ate the cereal each morning for one week, how much fiber would you get?

Add other paper plates with questions you create about your pantry items. Change it up each week to keep it fresh and fun.

This activity and many more can be found in the product: Lazy Days of Summer Activities, Games and Puzzle Packet. This packet can help students engage their brains during the summer as they spend time with their family and friends. The packet has easy and engaging activities, games, puzzles and ideas that parents can use to help their child continue to learn and grow throughout the summer.