Each year you work painstakingly to encourage your students to be readers and build their reading stamina, and it works until a break happens. Although breaks are great for rejuvenation and recharging they can often be the killer of reading lives for students for a variety of reasons.
That’s why I wanted to share this short list of easy ways to encourage your students to read over the long break.
1. Cultivate a culture of reading. When you read and share your reading life with students it is contagious and your students will want to follow suit. This tip right here pays off for your and your students all year long and builds credibility when you launch a reading challenge over long breaks.
2. Create a reading challenge. I’ve used a bingo or tic-tac-toe and paired its completion with my regular classroom incentives.
Ex: My classroom incentives were scholar dollars and students earned them for a variety of reasons. Students redeemed these scholar dollars for classroom incentives. When sending home a holiday incentive I would offer extra scholar dollars as a reward for turning in the completed bingo card.
3. Create hype with goal setting around the holiday reading incentive by having students create a books to read list. This one goes back to tip number 1 about a culture of reading. Pass out a books to read list and give students an opportunity to peruse books in your classroom library or favorite digital book source and write these titles down. This will get them thinking about what books they will read as they complete their bingo card. It also gives them an opportunity to talk to each other about books and make book recommendations to one another.
As a thank you for joining me on this blogging journey I am including a free Books to read list and google slides tic-tac-toe card for you to use with your students.
Next steps: Grab your free copy of the to be read list and tic-tac-toe and try it with your class and let me know how it works for you via social media. I can’t wait to hear how this works for you and your students.
