Are your students bored with doing traditional worksheet responses about the books that they have read?
Do your students look like this student when you assign them a writing activity about a book?
Many students enjoy reading novels as a class or on their own, but the majority of students moan, yawn, or complain when it comes down to writing about a book that they have read.
Instead, engage your students by providing them with activities that build reading comprehension and writing skills in a fun and challenging way!
My students are eager to read their next book and complete their book report because each book report is different from the previous one in style, layout, and content.
They want to finish reading their next book, so that they will receive a sticker on their reading incentive charts.
I have found that my students strive to use their best effort to complete their book reports because they are proud of their finished projects and the classroom displays featuring their hard work.
The bulletin boards in my classroom are filled with colorful displays of my students' projects. I have received positive comments about my classroom atmosphere from other teachers, the administrators at my school, parents, and my students. When I am asked how I accomplish this, I respond, "It is all of my students’ work, and they deserve all the credit."
In this picture, there are examples of my Birthday Cake Book Reports. For this book report, students plan a birthday party for the main character of their book.
Below you will find reading pages related to specific reading resources:
On this page, you will find reading resources on how to use book report projects in your class. I provide examples of the strategies that I have found successful in promoting reading with my students by using unique book reports. You can read about the three easy steps that I have used successfully in providing my students with reading activities that are fun, challenging, and engaging. You will also find example photographs using many of these unique reading resources.
Below are small graphical images of the variety of shapes that I have designed my book report templates in. Your students will find these uniquely shaped book report sets fun to complete, and each one contains writing activities related to the book report's shape, and the written responses required of students are different in each book report set.
I often found a book report idea that I really liked in a teacher resource book or on a website, but these projects involved purchasing a lot of additional items and driving around after school hours to find art supplies. This is not fun to do after a long day in the classroom!
My book reports are unique in shape, but simple in supplies!
After you have printed out the templates, the only materials that you will need to have in your classroom to complete these book report projects are scissors, glue, tape, and coloring pencils.
You will not need to go shopping after school for art supplies and materials to complete these book report projects.
A teacher's time is precious, so all of my book report sets include a 5 page bulletin board display banner in them to save you time in decorating your bulletin board display of your students' book report projects. The majority of my book reports sets also contain thematic bulletin board accent pieces in them for you to add the finishing touches to make your bulletin board display colorful and dynamic.
On this page, you will find a huge variety of different book report projects that are available for purchase.
Each project has a unique shape and a different writing topic. All of my book report reading resources contain the following components: direction page, first draft writing page, grading rubric, final draft templates, color copy of final draft templates, and a five page banner for you to use as a title for your bulletin board display.
On this web page, there are a variety of reading resources that I have created for specific book titles. For each book title, there will be a large response project for your students to complete together after they have read that book.
All of these projects contain the following components: direction page, first draft writing page, grading rubric, final draft templates, color copy of final draft templates, and a five page banner for you to use as a title for your bulletin board display.
Many of these reading resources and activities are designed to be cooperative group projects for students to complete together.
I have created some unique reading incentive charts in a variety of different themes and shapes. For each set, there are different colored templates for you to choose from. I have designed a five page matching banner for each set for you to use on your bulletin board display.
If you want to encourage your students to read a wide variety of books, choose one of the genre reading charts that include the following genres: fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, biography, mystery, adventure, and realistic fiction.
On this web page, there are also math, homework, and seasonal sticker charts.
Above: This is an example of my Genre Pizza Reading Record Chart. This reading record chart encourages students to read across a wide variety of different genres.
Knowing sight words is one of the basic building blocks of learning how to read. A sight word is a word that children can read readily without having to sound it out. To lay a foundation for learning how to read, it is imperative to introduce sight words to children.
Dr. Edward B. Fry's 1000 Instant Word List (which is commonly referred to as Fry Words) are the most common words in English ranked in order of frequency. In 1996, Dr. Fry expanded on Dolch's sight word lists and research and published a book titled "Fry 1000 Instant Words." His research found that a mere 25 words make up approximately 1/3 of all items published. He discovered that 100 words comprise approximately 1/2 of all the publications written, and 300 words make up 65% of all written material.
On this page, you will find free Fry flashcards and word lists for his 1000 words, which I have divided into ten sets. There are also flashcards and a word list for Fry's 100 Picture Nouns.
The Dolch Sight Words are a list of the most frequently used words in the English language. These sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text. The Dolch list contains 220 words that have been arranged by levels of advancing difficulty, as well as a list of 95 Dolch nouns.
On this page, you will find free Dolch flashcards and word lists for the following levels: preprimer, primer, first grade, second grade, third grade, and the Dolch nouns.
Are you looking for some award winning literature for your students to read? On this web page you will find the entire list of Newbery Medal, Newbery Honor, and Caldecotte Medal books.
For many of these specific book titles, I have reading resources available that you can use to supplement these classic novels.
Below: This is a group project for the book Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. This book won the Newbery Award in 1992. For this project, students describe the main characters Marty and Judd and write about the problem, solution, and conclusion.
Learning to work in cooperative groups is an important skill that we must teach our students. As teachers, we need to present our students with opportunities to work together with their classmates. You will find many cooperative group projects in my reading resources based on popular children's novels.
Below: In the three photographs below, you will see examples my castle group projects for the book The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman. This book won the Newberry Award in 1987. For this large castle shaped project, students describe the four main characters and the setting, problem, solution, and conclusion.
Above is a classroom bulletin board display
of my students' Whipping Boy Castle Projects.
If you have any ideas for reading resources that you would like to see on my website, please use my contact page to let me know your ideas and suggestions.
Thank you for visiting this reading resources web page. Please be sure to check out the other pages on my website for a large variety of teaching resources that will engage your students in learning and save you valuable time.
Sincerely, Heidi McDonald
Creator and Site Manager Unique Teaching Resources
Do your students look like this student when you assign them a writing activity about a book? 
