Reading Activity Guides

If you work with younger children or have them at home, don't miss this! Sharing a Story is a collection of prereading, while-you-read and follow-up activities to use with a dozen favorite children's books. You'll find all kinds of creative and inexpensive ideas to extend the learning.

Best of all, you can check it out absolutely FREE with Sharing a Story Free Sample! Just click the link and you can get a free download with supplemental and extension ideas for three popular children's books.

Homeschoolers and upper-grades teachers will adore these well-thought out, extensive and high quality teacher's guide tools at Penguin Books. This resource is amazing-the collection includes guides to classics like Call of the Wild, Tale of Two Cities, Animal Farm, and many more, plus a collection of Shakespearean titles. Visit Penguin Books Free Teacher's Guides for information.

No matter what age group your struggling readers are in, you might be able to help them get going with music. For younger children, try checking your local library or bookstore for children's books based on familiar songs, such as Over in the Meadow or She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain. For older students or adults, grab lyrics to current, popular or favorite songs off the internet.

Many song lyrics are written with the syllables already broken up, like this: A-ma-zing grace... It's the perfect way to demonstrate how to chop words into manageable bits and also to classify syllables to better understand the vowel sounds. Give it a try!

You will want to visit Book Punch.com for lesson plans and writing activities related to favorite pieces of children's literature. These free samples can't be beat!

Do you know a reluctant teen reader? These young people just haven't found a use for reading. They often struggle with some aspect of learning, and they claim boredom with nearly every printed material known to mankind.

Now you can tempt even the most stubborn reluctant reader. Head to the library or bookstore and find a Ripley's Believe It or Not book. There are numerous examples from Ripley Publishing, but they all have a common format. Short snippets of the oddities and weirdnesses from around the world, accompanied by vivid artwork and pictures will intrigue ANY student. Some will be attracted by the gross-out factor. Others will be interested in unusual feats. Some will want to learn trivial facts and figures about an isolated area of life, and still others want to find out about extremes of everything.

I use several Ripley's books with my reluctant teen readers, and every single student reads willingly when these books come out. In fact, students request them when given choices for free reading. The very brief articles lend themselves to browsing. No one has to pay attention to any single item for more than a few moments at a time. The pictures are unusual and will stop even the most callous and jaded kids in their tracks as they spy something that catches their interest.

Check it out!

Who can resist MONKEYS??? Minnie and Freddie are two friends in this sweet book by Rita Gelman. They are a bit at odds over some spaghetti. It seems that Minnie is more interested in the noodles than in the games that Freddie would like to play. Read along to see all of the trouble that the spaghetti causes, and laugh at the silly pictures involving mountains of spaghetti. It's a favorite food turned into a favorite book.

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES:
Try these before, during or after reading.

Share some real spaghetti. It's great with just a bit of butter, salt and pepper.

Draw a picture of a MOUNTAIN of spaghetti. How much spaghetti would it take to make a mountain?

Act out some things friends can do together. See if others can guess the activities being portrayed.

As you read, leave off the rhyming word and see if the kids can fill in the missing rhyme.

Check out this great book for middle elementary readers! It is likely to appeal to fourth through sixth or seventh grade boys and girls alike. Take one strange but rich neighbor, a few mysterious occurances, and a fortune to be inherited, and you have the ingredients for a gripping tale.

Once your students read this one, let them try their hand at creating their own mysteries! Try making up word puzzles, trails to follow from clues, or even a complex combination of lots of different kinds of puzzles. The prize for completing the puzzles? Try a small candy or a privilege to be won at the end of the game.

Another possible activity would be to create a board game based on the novel. Draw the path on the inside of a file folder, and let the kids come up with penalty and bonus spaces based on the events in the book.

Have fun!

One of my toughest students is 18 and struggling to finish tenth grade. He's a very reluctant reader, but we've discovered together that real-life action books are a temptation. Fallen Angels is an up close and personal look at the Vietnam War, told in the first person. Parts are as raw as you'd expect, and the realism is astounding. My student is considering the military as an option after (hopeful!) graduation, and this story has been quite an eye-opener for him. It also provides a jumping off place for discussions about current politics, history and foreign policy. If you have a reluctant high school reader, you might want to take a look.

Looking for some seasonal action? Try the holiday lenses:

Halloween Reading for Kids

Christmas Reading for Kids

Valentine's Day Reading for Kids

Easter Reading for Kids

St. Patrick's Day Reading

If you work with children from fourth through eighth grade, run, don't walk, to the nearest library or bookstore to get a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. This book is a real gem, perfect for reading aloud to older kids. There are ample opportunities to have fun with words and voice tones, and the action is lively and interesting. The main character of the book is a boy who is bored with learning, and the story takes him on an unforgettable journey through a fanciful land to prove that there can be no vacation from gathering knowledge. It's a part of life and is fun, to boot! Give it a look, and I'm sure you'll be able to tempt even your reluctant older reader.