Book Review

After reading a fiction or nonfiction text, have your child write a book review. Book reviews can be shared with other family members, readers in the neighborhood, or posted online. Book reviews should include the following elements, at a minimum:

• The title and author of the book
• A summary of the book
• Likes and dislikes
• A recommendation and rating for the book

Text Feature Hunt

Have your child select a notification text, on a topic of their choosing. Before reading, complete a preview of the text by hunting for text features that provide readers with more information to support their comprehension. Discuss the significance of each of these features with your child, the information each provides, and how they help the reader understand the text better. Text features to hunt for include:

Adaptation: Your child can create their own text feature to add to the text, in order to better support their comprehension

Five Finger Retell

After reading a fiction text, have your child use their hand to retell the key story elements and events of the story. The five fingers are used for:

1. Character(s)
2. Setting
3. Beginning
4. Middle
5. End

Old Favorites

Encourage your child to give the gift of reading to someone else! Have them choose a favorite story, or the next chapter of their book, to read aloud to a family member, neighbor, pet, or stuffed animal. This activity can be done in person, over the phone, or through the computer!

Reader's Theatre

Visit The Best Class website, or search the web, for access to printable reader's theatre scripts. Select and highlight the parts you and your child will read; practice reading these parts, paying particular attention to expression and voice. You can then perform your reading for an audience!

Adaptation: You and your child can choose a book to adapt into a reader's theatre script.

Shared Reading

Read a text with your child- texts include books, newspaper/magazine articles, passages, graphic novels/comics, and online materials. Take turns reading the text aloud; as one reads, the other listen and then provides feedback related to speed, phrasing, accuracy, expression, intonation, and voice.

NOTE: It is recommended that you ask your child questions following any fluency reading activity to monitor for comprehension. List of suggested questions

Keeping It Real

Help your reader become more automatic when reading words with common syllable parts. Cut small index cards in half; using the list of common syllables, have your child write one syllable on each card. Then, begin by putting two cards together to make a real two-syllable word. Help your child read the word, discuss its meaning, and use it in a sentence. Continue this process, building up to three-, four-, and even five-syllable words!

Adaptation: You and your child can compete to see who can create words with the most syllables! Using the same cards as above, create real multisyllabic words. Players score one point for each syllable in the word. Play several rounds; the player with the highest number of points wins!

Word Building Challenge

Help your child decode multisyllabic words by breaking them up into individual syllables. Check out this video on the six syllable types to help you and your child identify and read the different syllable parts in a word.

Do Play with Your Words!

Check out this resource from Scholastic for more syllable activities to play with your child.

Exploding Word Parts

On a piece of paper or dry erase board, write a base/root word, prefix, or suffix in a center circle. Have your child brainstorm as many words as they can that contain the word part given; each word should be recorded coming off the center circle, as if it is exploding! Discuss the words your child writes, discussing their meaning and how they connect with the central base/root, prefix, or suffix.

Word Hunt

Identify a familiar base/root word, prefix, or suffix for your child. As they read, have them be on the lookout for any words that contain the selected word part. Be sure your child records these words, so you can go back and discuss their meaning!

Best of Times

Have your child write about a time that was meaningful, special, or memorable. Encourage them to use superlatives- suffixes used to compare the quality of two or more things (-er and -est are the most common). Your child may choose to use such words as happiest, tastier, greatest, fastest, brighter, loudest, prettier, wildest, etc. to describe their special moment!

Let's Play a Game!

Host a game night with family members, or other neighborhood readers! Play games such as Pictionary®, HeadBandz®, or Buzzword® to promote vocabulary development.

Did You Hear?

Keep a notepad handy- in the car, near the TV etc. Encourage your child to write down any new words they hear from the radio or television shows, or as you read together. Discuss the meaning of these new words, or have your child look them up. Challenge your child to start using these new words in daily conversation!

Be the Expert

Have your child pick a nonfiction book on a topic of their choosing; depending on the complexity, this book could be read together. As you read, collect new vocabulary by recording unfamiliar words on index cards, in a notebook, or on a computer program. Work together to define these new words, using information the text provides, if possible. Then, have your child create an illustration or diagram of the book’s topic, and use the new vocabulary as labels or captions. Let them use these drawings to teach others what they have learned!