As a follow-up to Emily’s summer reading blog post last week, here are 7 tips for engaging with your summer reading!
- Collaborate with a few classmates or friends and act out a favorite scene in the book you are currently reading. Don’t act? Try a comic book-style storyboard, or use a program like Toontastic to create a free animation on an iPad!
- Write a letter to the author. Many times he or she can be reachable through Facebook or Twitter or a personal website, but even if you don’t mail it: tell the author about what you found inspiring, or what questions you have about the book.
- Create a monthly ‘book club’ with friends or classmates who are reading the same book to share opinions and reactions.
- Host a book exchange among your friends: pick up new ones, get rid of old ones!
- Keep track of unfamiliar/interesting vocabulary words by making flashcards!
- Draft a one-page free response about any part of the book that fascinated you, confused you, or just got you thinking from a new perspective. (This kind of free-write can be a great foundation of a more structured essay, which will likely be assigned by the teacher once school begins again!)
- If the books have been made into a movie, organize movie night! Compare and contrast the book version versus the movie version of the story. Which one was better?
Need more ideas? Scholastic Summer Challenge is full of great ideas for summer reading.
Don’t have a good book to read? Here are 180 books recommended by TED.com experts, and here is a database of free e-books from Kobobooks.com.
And one last tidbit of inspiration:
“When children get help choosing skill-appropriate books and read those books over the summer break, both independently and with guidance from family members, reading achievement scores can improve significantly.” From The Value of Summer Reading; a compilation of research supporting the value of Summer reading, from the California Library Association.