Read Across America: Easy Ideas for the Classroom

Read books with kids… to daily promote the message there is room in our community for all readers. The world—and books—are filled with many different kinds of people. Getting to know them is interesting, exciting, and fun!
nea.org

The Read Across America celebration has evolved greatly from it’s original origin of celebrating the birthday of Dr. Seuss to now celebrating a nation of diverse readers. NEA is committed to helping “motivate kids to read and celebrate the diversity in their community and our country.”

So what does that mean for your classroom? Perhaps you already have plans in place for next week, but if you don’t here a few ideas to help make the celebration your own, for your students:

Read! Seems pretty obvious, right? But read alouds and the conversations they create space for is an amazing way to provide students with mirrors they can see themselves reflected in, as well as books that allow readers to see a world or a character that might be different than them. Want ideas for what to read? Check out my next post, What to Read for RAA.
Guest readers. Invite friends who might not always get to interact with students into your classroom to read (see above).
Reading Challenge. Challenge students to log how long they read every night of the week at home and tally up the class the minutes up each day. Think like one of those thermometers where the mercury rises each day- Everyone loves a little gamification!
Make reading at home fun. Share new, novel ways to read at home to get those independent reading minutes up. Reading bingo, scavenger hunt, have families send you photos of their kids reading in fun places, etc.
Buddy reading. Pair up with another grade-level class and have students read together.
RAD: Random Acts of D.E.A.R. Ok, that’s a lot of acronyms, but c’mon, who doesn’t love a little blast from the past with D.E.A.R. Have fun with it next week. Randomly stop what you are doing and make time for silent reading. You could even have students “read like cavemen” under their desk, “read like a boss” with their feet up on the desk, “read like the floor is lava” and sit on their desk…. you get the point.
Have a classroom book exchange. This might be more than you want to take on, but how awesome would it be if students each brought in 2-3 books they are done with and then get to go home with a couple of new titles?!