Are you struggling to get your reluctant readers excited about the books available to them? Are your students losing interest in reading in favor of daydreaming about warmer weather? Here are some of my favorite ways to get my students excited about books throughout the school year!
USE YOUR READ ALOUD
Use this time to make some powerful book choices. Introduce your students to lovable characters or a new book series that they won’t be able to resist. Reading aloud can be for enjoyment. Model your own love for reading….it’s contagious!
HOST A BOOK RAFFLE
Use those Scholastic book order points and buy some new books for the class. Introduce each book by reading the blurb and showing the cover. Then set up a raffle. You can either set up a system where students earn tickets or give everyone an equal chance and pass out sticky notes.
Either way, you’ll be able to hear a pin drop as you draw each name!
LET PEERS HAVE A SAY
Elementary students still value their teacher’s opinion, but they are beginning to value what their peers have to say, too! Tap into this with peer book recommendations. You can set up a small area in your classroom for this. Just leave a stack of slips and a basket near the classroom library. Students can either hand deliver the slips to their peers or you can set aside a few minutes a week to read them aloud to build even more excitement.
Either way, the students will LOVE that a classmate thought about them and students will be curious about the book that was recommended. I call that a win-win situation! You can find the peer recommendation slips here.
HOST A BOOK EXCHANGE
This is a great way to get students excited about books without spending a lot of money! Send a letter or invitation home prior to the event explaining the details. Make sure to clearly state what type of books should be included in the exchange! If you want all of the books to be new, set a price limit. If you allow donated books, add photo examples to your invite of books in gently used condition and make sure the parents sign off on the donation (you don’t want a family heirloom or something pulled from Mom and Dad’s personal reading collection).
For each student that donates a book, he or she can receive a raffle ticket. You can either do a drawing or allow students to shop with their ticket as their money. I have thrown in a few books purchased with Scholastic book points or from my classroom library just so every student has some choice (or to replace a donated book that isn’t appropriate or isn’t in good condition).
GIVE THE GIFT OF READING
You can grab these book tags here:
I hope you’ll be able to try at least one of these ideas with your own students.
Looking for a new book to add to your library? Check out these book lists.
Here are some ways you can build your classroom library.
Don’t throw away your Scholastic Book Order catalogs just yet! Here are some ways to use Scholastic Book Club fliers in the classroom.
Thanks for sharing these tips. I like the peer (kid) recommendations. I work in an elementary school library and it is a struggle to get reluctant readers to pick a book and actually read it! We will give this a try.
Great! I hope this works out well for your students!
Storie
I also loved the peer recommendations. What a great idea!! And I love those labels too! Can’t wait to use them!
Like you, I love reading and my Kiddy Library is my pride and joy. I always do my utmost to get kids excited with reading. I show them my enthusiasm for the pictures or point them out if they’re funny. I let them touch if there is something special to them, like the wonderful Christmas book by Nicola Smee Jingle Jingle that has “velour” on all the red spots of the cover. The kids go crazy when they get to touch it. Anything that will work as a hook to grab their attention will do for me!
Thank you for this great article!
Hi Carolyn,
I love the idea of getting kids to interact with the illustrations in the books!
Storie
I once had a group of EFL 1st and 2nd graders. I read to them Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas by Aaron Blabey. They were super amused by the pictures. A month later, I brought over one of the Pig books, also by Blabey. When asking the kids for connections, they immediately made them with the pictures, Blabey and the Piranha book. I was incredibly awed by my littles!
Illustrations are a great way to get the kids hooked. One gets them used to looking for details in them, they’re fun and some are simply gorgeous! There’s a bit for everyone in them!
Now, you don’t want to see me with a picture book. I’m like a kid, looking at them in total wonder and amusement. Love, love, love!
I bet you were so proud of your readers for making those connections!
Some books have an incredible amount of detail in the illustrations. That’s why I’m always shocked when teachers balk at using wordless books. Each reader has a different take on the story based on what they notice about the illustrations and those discussions are some of my favorites!
Yes, I was! I never expected them to remember the details. They even remembered the story and actually answered all my questions about the book!
Wordless books are essential in my classroom. I use them to get students of all ages (kids and adults) to speak. I’ll do anything for them to use the language and wordless books are wonderful for that! I have already seen your list and have added a few to my wishlist! There’s a couple there I really can’t wait to have, like Wave – got a chuckle out of that one! It will take me a while to get them all seeing how expensive books are getting to be, but I will definitely add them to my collection!
I have a few myself, which I love:
– The three Aaron Becker books – Wolf in the Snow
– Bee & Me – I See You
– A Ball for Daisy – Good Night, Gorilla
– Tuesday – Watersong
– Unspoken – Pancakes for Breakfast (I used this one today!)
– Red – Snowman’s Story
– I Walk With Vanessa – The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABC’s
– Owl Bat Bat Owl
– Ball
So glad you love wordless books as much as I do! I have found many in our public library, which has helped me save money while still enjoying the books.