How do you and your school district help students develop a love of reading and writing? If you’re looking for fun activities to promote literacy skills in your district, then you’ve come to the right place. You can try out activities in your classroom, school, or district to support literacy skill-building this school year.
Regular readers of the blog know that I’m a big fan of all things Capstone. You might remember these blog posts from earlier this year where I featured some of the ways to use their resources in different content areas:
- 7 Ways to Inject Math in Reading Classrooms
- 5 Ways to Boost Literacy Skills During Your Next Science Lesson
- 6 Creative Ways to Integrate Literacy into Your Social Studies Lessons
With PebbleGo’s engaging texts for young readers, the interactive ebooks from Capstone Connect, and a vast selection of print books, Capstone has you covered.
6 Fun Activities to Promote Literacy Skills
Today, I have a handful of fun activities to promote literacy skills across your school or district. If you’re a classroom teacher, you might tailor these to use with your students or grade-level team or pass the link to this post along to a literacy coach, media specialist, or school administrator who is developing programming for your district.
What type of activities can help promote literacy skills in your school district? There are lots of answers to this question, but I’ve pulled together six for you to consider. These are ready for you to adapt to the needs of your school community and even customize to match a particular time of the year.
Storytelling Workshops
To get families excited about reading and exploring stories this school year, you might set up a series of storytelling workshops. These events might take place once a month or once a quarter. You can invite local authors, storytellers, or even theater groups to conduct storytelling workshops for students. This type of event can help students to develop their listening, speaking, and comprehension skills and build a love of stories.
Sharing Favorites Events
If your students have consumed lots of short texts (like the high-interest articles in PebbleGo), they probably have a favorite or two. At an event like this, you can have students share recommendations for favorite pieces of text from the past month or quarter. Students who have created posters or other creative works to accompany their favorite piece of reading material can show those off here, too.
Book Swap
You might want to organize a book swap event to bring families together and cultivate a love of reading at your school. Families can bring in gently used books and exchange them with their peers. This is also an opportunity to enlist community partners who might donate funds to purchase books to include in the book swap. This is a creative way to boost literacy skills in your district by introducing students to new books and authors.
Themed Reading Days
To build excitement about reading in our district, you might designate specific themed reading days. For example, one day a month might be called Animal Day, Pajama Day, or Character Day, where students can come dressed up and engage in literacy activities related to the theme. If you’ve explored the texts in PebbleGo, you know there are categories you can use as inspiration, like “Jobs in the Community.”
Reading Buddies
Another fun activity to promote literacy skills in your district is to pair students together as reading buddies. For example, younger students might pick out a text they want to share with students in a different grade level to explore together. This could include a physical book or an ebook they read side-by-side on a tablet.
Creative Writing Contests
In addition to reading-focused activities, you might take a creative writing spin to help promote literacy skills in your district. First, you might ask students to read a selection of text for inspiration, like a text on Animal Habitats. Then, they can use this article to inspire their own creative writing piece. You might organize writing contests with various themes or genres.
PebbleGo from Capstone
If you’re looking to boost literacy skills in your district both inside and outside of the classroom, you’ll want to check out PebbleGo. As I mentioned at the top of this post, I’m a fan of all things Capstone. They are the company behind PebbleGo, which offers students and teachers quick access to high-quality, high-interest reading materials.
You can find lots of informational text in PebbleGo to share with students. These cover a wide range of topics and are available in English and Spanish, too.
To learn more about PebbleGo, you can head straight to their website. This is where you can check out everything they have to offer student readers in your district!
