Summer Literacy Plan

The clock is counting down to the end of the school year! When the smell of honeysuckle floats through the air and the sounds of "Slap Billy-Ola" echo at recess, I know that summer is coming.

My readers this year have been such a wonderful, engaged group. I wanted to create something that would keep them reading and writing all summer long. I created this Summer Literacy Plan for them!

Summer Literacy Plan from Emily Kissner

Today, I introduced the summer literacy plan in class. The students were eager to think about it and make great summer reading plans. The plan suggests that students create at least one goal for each area (literature, informational text, writing, and fluency). To my delight, many students were making multiple goals for each area!

After students talk about their plans with parents and return the plans with parent signatures, I will make copies to give to their next teacher, who is also excited about summer literacy. Plans and record sheets will go home in report card envelopes, which I think will make them seem more "official". I'm looking forward to great things!

Helping students to plan for summer literacy is so important. How are you getting students ready for summer reading?

Summer School Reading Resources

Working with summer school this summer? I remember the days of wanting to plan high-interest, engaging activities...but not wanting to spend all day creating new materials.  Here are some resources that I have created that might save you time and get you back by the pool!

Reading Intervention
This intervention includes six high-interest nonfiction texts with summer themes, all written at a 4-5 grade reading level. You could use the entire 30-day program, or just use some parts. My students have always enjoyed reading "Leaves of Three, Let It Be" and then walking around the schoolyard to look at (but not touch) poison ivy! Other texts include caverns, thunderstorms, and bluebirds, all of which lend themselves to fun outdoor extensions.

May Reading Homework
My students loved the recipe for s'mores that I wrote for this series of texts. It would be fun to compare and contrast the classic s'mores with the indoor s'more recipe!

Also included is a fable, a problem/solution text about cheetahs, and a readers theatre selection about Memorial Day. Each text includes vocabulary, comprehension questions, an extension focusing on complex text, and an open-ended response.

Roman Readers Theatre
Readers theatre scripts are a great way to engage students in practicing fluency. They are happy to do repeated reading when they get to perform! These scripts are funny little plays that introduce students to aspects of Roman culture. You could do multiple scripts with a large group, or have the same group of students do several scripts over a period of days or weeks. Students can then compare the information in the readers theatre scripts to the information in the included article.

Under the Sea Nonfiction Texts
Four texts with comprehension questions and open-ended responses. I wrote these when my students were fascinated by octopuses. (Yes, it's octopuses and not octopi!) I became fascinated too! The culminating activity included with these texts would be lots of fun for summer school and could lead right into an aquarium visit.

Frolyc.com
If you have access to iPads, check out Frolyc.com. You can create activities and publish them to student iPads, have students create activities, or use activities that other teachers have created. (Search my name to find some of my activities.) This is a great time to play around with a great tool for the upcoming school year.

Updates
-I am working on Part 2 of the Daily Sentence Writing. By the time I am finished, there will be more than 20 weeks of sentence activities to help students compose, imitate, and chunk sentences.
-Other plans for the summer include updating the Visualizing activities, adding a new unit on analyzing stories, and finishing a reading intervention that incorporates United States geography. Leave a comment if you would like something to be a priority!

Promote summer reading with a book swap

A book swap is a great way to promote summer reading! It is easy to set up and lots of fun. Here's how it works:

-Kids bring in books that they have already read. They bring them to the designated place and receive a ticket for each book.
-On the day of the book swap, teachers and students spread out the books on tables. This could be done lovingly and with great care (if you have extra time in the last week of school--ha ha!) or hastily (my preferred method).
-Kids with tickets come and get first pick of "new" books to read for the summer.
-Everyone else can come and pick out a book.

Now, it might sound as if only the kids who donate books get to pick new ones. But it never works out that way. We always have such an abundance of donated books that every kid gets to choose at least one. Usually we end up giving away tons of extras!

Why does this happen? There are always parents who take advantage of the book swap to do some spring cleaning, donating 20+ books. The kids with this many tickets freely give away tickets to friends. Teachers (including me!) also take advantage of the chance to clear the bookshelves a bit. I make sure that any tickets I get find their way into the hands of students. Even with this giving away of tickets we always end up with extra books. It is a great and wonderful mystery of life.

One parent note home and repeated announcements are usually enough to ensure participation. In fact, I've been surprised at how many students join in. Every student in my school received two free books from RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) this year, and many of these books are brought in. It's neat to see how RIF books can bring reading to multiple kids.

A book swap is a free way to promote summer reading, and it is a nice activity to get kids reading in the last week of school. Have you tried a book swap? Share any tips or stories that you have!

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