The beginning of the school year can seem like a whirl! But in the midst of the chaos, my favorite thing to do is to get to know my students through reading when we get back to school. Not only does it grab their attention, but I love to help them fall in love with reading early on in the year. Back to school reading is my favorite!!
To help ease the transition and also mark a few things off of the to-do list, I am sharing some reading tips that are great for the beginning of the year.
Spend time talking to them about reading. Connect with them. Find those, “Me too!” moments that you can have with them and that other students can have with them, too. They are so powerful for building classroom community!
As I do this, I enjoy making an anchor chart to name everyone’s favorite books, too! It hangs in our room and reminds us that we all are readers and love books!
At the beginning of the year we read books–lots of books! We read during more than Read Aloud time. I read to them to teach them about classroom behavior, expectations, being a good friend, and being a good citizen of our school. Here a few of our favorites for back to school reading!
So often my little learners come in and feel so discouraged. When I ask them if they love to read or what they read, so many of them say, “Mrs. Richardson, I can’t read yet.” I LOVE to empower them and make them feel like the little readers they truly are.
Remind them that we all are learning and no one is perfect. As we are learning to read the words, we can still enjoy the pictures the illustrator drew. We can look at them to help us understand the story, though the words are the true part that we want kids to attend to. Sometimes we read the words and other times we enjoy looking at the pictures in this season of back to school reading.
As soon as you start pulling small groups, you will be giving them books that they can read easily. These books can go in their book boxes and they will have material at their finger tips to enjoy each day!
If you want to be set for back to school reading and activities, I have a few favorites teaching resources to share with you. These are perfect for kindergarten, first, and second grade!
Back to School Read Aloud Activities | Included for each of the 11 books is a detailed lesson plan and two activities that help teach procedures, get to know your students, or teach expectations. There is also an anchor chart idea included for each book, including the pieces necessary to make each chart.
Phonemic Awareness Activities |This resource is meant to help you easily organize your intervention activities and data tracking. You’ll be set from the beginning of the year to the end.
I hope this helps you get a little jump start with reading during the back to school season! What do you love to do at the beginning of the year as you jump into reading with your little learners?
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4 Responses
I love your ideas!
I clicked on your link for the freebie – 3 ways to read a book.
But I cannot find this anywhere in your store.
Can you help?
Hi Dee! We have taken this freebie down as we’d rather encourage readers to sound words out than reading the pictures. If you want, you can email us at [email protected] and we can email you the file. 🙂