Authentic Reading and Writing Opportunities for Summer to Build Background Knowledge

Summer is a time to put aside the constraints of the classroom, let loose, and have some fun, but that doesn't mean kids stop learning. In fact, summer is a great time to build background knowledge by exploring kids' special interests and activities through books.

START WITH A BOOK

Reading Rockets has put together a wonderful, free resource called Start With a Book. It includes three parts:

1. Choose a Topic to Explore - Reading Rockets provides a list of 24 different topics including Birds and Animals, Inventions and Inventors, Cooking and Food, Geography and Travel, and Nature: Our Green World. Many of these topics are also related to my Free PDF on Tips for Connecting Books with Summer Fun.

2. Find Great Kids Books - Under each topic, Reading Rockets provides links to several children's book titles, but that's not all. They also make suggestions for writing activities like Keeping a Nature Journal, Let's Write a Recipe, Building Stories where kids design a house, and Robots and Work where kids brainstorm an invention of a robot and write about it.

3. Keep the Adventure Going - Reading Rockets provides websites, podcasts, and more connected with each topic so kids can continue to build background knowledge.

READWORKS

Would you prefer short non-fiction articles for older students on a greater variety of subjects? Does your child have difficulty reading on their own? If so, you may want to check out ReadWorks. It is a free resource for educators and parents that provides short reading passages along with vocabulary activities and comprehension questions, on a variety of topics including STEM, social studies, poetry, and literary fiction. They include a recording of each reading passage to support struggling readers. To sign up for ReadWorks and learn more about what they offer, go to their website at https://www.readworks.org/.  Articles are listed by grade level and length.

Through ReadWorks, kids can learn about geysers before visiting Yellowstone, read about a farmer's market in New York City before spending a day at their local venue, or investigate an animal that stirs their interest after a trip to the local zoo. These are all ways to build authentic reading experiences and background knowledge while capitalizing on a child's natural curiosity.

So have fun with those summer activities, but make those activities even more interesting by connecting them with something fun to read!

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Children's Authors with Dyslexia - Laurie Halse Anderson

I have always admired the work of Laurie Halse Anderson. I met her in person at the American Library Association conference a few years back and discovered that she was warm and personable as well as supremely talented. Her young adult novel, Speak, was groundbreaking in both its content and its style. Her teen novels cover tough topics like sexual assault and eating disorders (see Wintergirls).

In addition to her books for teens grades 7-12, Anderson has also written several well-researched historical books for younger students in grades 5-9 such as her Seeds of America trilogy.

For even younger children, grades 3-7, she created the Vet Volunteer series with a number of books about children saving animals from abuse. The series focuses on five kids who volunteer at a veterinary clinic. Anderson describes the series as Babysitters Club + Animal ER. 

Anderson actually began by writing picture books. Her first title was Ndito Runs. Her 2008 picture book, Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution involved so much research that in one interview that it took her nearly as long to write the picture book as it takes her to write a novel.

The scope and diversity of her books are impressive, but what is even more intriguing is that Anderson struggled to learn to read. This month on my blog I'm highlighting children's authors with dyslexia in celebration of Dyslexia Awareness Month, so I naturally wanted to include Anderson and her work. 

In a video for Reading Rockets, Anderson talks about receiving extra help early on for reading as well as for speech. In the interview, she tells how she cracked the reading code and became an avid reader but still struggled with grammar and spelling. Her first positive experience with writing was when her second-grade teacher introduced her to haiku. She could choose words for the short-form poem that she knew how to spell and after that experience, she was on a roll. 

I often use haiku with struggling writers. It is a simple, short form that his highly engaging and fun for kids of all ages. Watch for my fall haiku activity coming in November. In the meantime, watch Anderson's interview on Reading Rockets, explore her books, and check out last week's post about Henry Winkler and his Hank Zipzer series.

Captain Underpants and Dog Man to the Rescue of Struggling Readers

I recently started reading the Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey with my students with dyslexia. Even the girls love this unlikely crime-fighting hero who is part cop and part dog. What makes these books even more meaningful is the fact that Dav has dyslexia and ADHD. He has several YouTube videos where he speaks very frankly about his experiences as a struggling reader. Check out the video on Reading Rockets. Pilkey was often sent out into the hall for being disruptive in class and would draw cartoons that he later shared with his peers. He was in second grade when he first came up with the ideas for Dog Man and Captain Underpants.

Feeling nostalgic, I looked through my son's old treasures and found the Captain Underpants books I bought for him seventeen years ago. He wasn't much of a reader at the time. I still remember him jumping up and down on the bed each night as I read to him and his sister. I wasn't sure if anything was soaking in. One day he came home from the school library with a Captain Underpants. When I saw the pure delight these stories of underwear and evil cafeteria ladies inspired, I went out and bought more. Those books are what turned my son into a reader.

My first young adult novel, Comfort, came out around that time. It tackled tough issues like alcoholism and family dysfunction. I remember wanting to write "important" children's literature and I thought a lot about what that meant. What I learned from my son's experience with Captain Underpants is this:

Important children's literature is the stuff kids choose to read when no one is making them read it.

With that definition, I'd have to say that Dav Pilkey's books rank right up there with Shakespeare. Interestingly, the same son who couldn't sit still for a bedtime story later took an entire class on Shakespeare in high school. In college, he gravitated to books on philosophy that I didn't even understand. I personally believe Captain Underpants is partially responsible for these successes.

Dav Pilkey recently talked to UNDERSTOOD.ORG about how he believes every kid has some kind of superpower, even if it is just imagination. He considers his dyslexia and ADHD to be his superpowers because they helped him to be very cautious about the words he chooses for each of his books and to "not be boring." See the post HERE and check out the other helpful resources at UNDERSTOOD.ORG for kids and parents. Pilkey created a free coloring sheet that is downloadable on that site.

Kids with learning disabilities and other challenges often feel alone. It helps for them to have role models to look up to who have overcome significant learning challenges. We have to be cautious, though, and not make kids feel that on top of all their other challenges, we have huge expectations for them to become Olympic athletes, famous illustrators, or billionaire entrepreneurs (Several of the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank have mentioned that they have dyslexia). That's why I really like what Pilkey says about imagination itself being a superpower. I also love that his Captain Underpants characters, George and Harold, are such unlikely heroes with the primary mission of defending, "truth, justice and all that is pre-shrunk and cottony." Their main gift is their imagination, and that is a superpower we must foster in all children.