Summer Blog Party Kick Off Hop- Book Suggestions, Parent Tips and Reading Contracts

Welcome to the Summer Blog Party Kick Off Hop!  I want to start by thanking Carla from Comprehension Connection for organizing the hop.  Seventeen literacy bloggers from The Reading Crew are participating in the hop to share suggestions, tips and freebies to help prevent the summer reading slide.  The Crew is also supplying two $25 TpT gift certificates for those of you who enter the giveaway found along the hop, so let's get this party started! 

Isn't it wonderful summer has finally arrived?  Students have packed up their belongings and headed home for the summer. Hopefully, they'll continue to read throughout the summer to keep their reading progress advancing in the right direction.  However, we, as teachers, know that is not always the case for some of our students, so we offer tips and resources, then hope for the best! Right?

I think the most advantageous thing we can do for our students is to get parents invested in their child's education.  Don't you agree?  We all know students perform better academically when their parents are involved in their learning, so it's our job to offer parental support. When teachers assist parents in navigating any educational challenges their may child be encountering, everyone benefits. 

Ever heard of the ABCs of Improved Reading?  It can serve as a simple, but informative, reminder of ways parents can engage their child in reading.  Children must have access to literature in order to become avid readers, so the first step is to make sure parents supply various types of reading materials for their child.  Of course, the literature has to be at a just right level for their child because, if it is too easy or too difficult, not much reading growth can take place.  Furthermore, the whole purpose of reading is to gather meaning from a text.  For this reason, it is crucial parents are asking their child questions before, during and after a story or informational text.  You'll find some helpful prompts below and HERE.

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I also wanted to compile just a few of my favorite book suggestions containing fun and engaging story lines, but also teach the reader literacy tips along the way.  I figured these stories would be relevant to share with parents, since each book has a lesson in itself. The story titles listed below enlighten readers about some aspect of reading and writing: what it takes to become a good reader, how to choose a "just right" book, writing a story of your own, etc.  Just to give you an example, in the book Wolf!, the main character learns to read fluently to impress his friends, but he finds out he must practice often to get it right.  The moral of the story is Readers need to practice reading to become better readers!  

The two book collages found below consist of the thirteen titles geared mostly toward early primary students.  Each title is linked to Amazon, if you would like to take a closer look at any of them.  The books are How to Read a Story, Wolf!, The Best Place to Read a Book, The Best Book to Read, Wild About Books,  Goldisocks and the Three Libearians, Charlie Cook's Favorite Books, How Rocket Learned to Read, Rocket Writes a Story, The Plot Chickens, Little Red Writing, Pick a Picture: Write a Story and Tell Me the Day Backwards.

Last, but not least, I created a couple of freebies to help kids continue good reading habits throughout the summer and school year. The images below are linked to my TpT store. If you download the freebies, ratings are always greatly appreciated. The first freebie is a handout offering literacy tips for parents on how they can support good reading and writing habits at home. 

The second freebie is from a previous post.  It is a set of summer reading contracts for both students and parents, along with some reading logs. The logs can be valuable motivators for students because they serve as documentation of a child's dedication to read.  The contracts help secure a commitment between a parent and child to work together to keep reading growth soaring throughout the summer.  :)

Well, that's it from me!  I hope these book suggestions, literacy tips and reading contracts with logs help keep students reading all the way through the summer and well beyond!  Thank you to Paula Kim Studio, Kimberly Geswein and Whimsy Clips for the fonts and clipart in this post.  

Before you go, I'd love for us to stay connected!  Check out any of the social media buttons on the blog to follow along on Literacy Loving Gals' educational journey, or feel free to link your blog to the Blogs tab above, so others may find you when they visit Literacy Loving Gals. :) Now, head on over to Allie at The Positive Teacher for some more suggestions and freebies!

Happy Summer!