Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in working with struggling readers who require additional help in reading fundamentals and comprehension skills development.

Summer Learning for Everyone

Summer Learning for Everyone

Summer and learning are natural partners. And July is the perfect time for kids, parents, and teachers to dip into that stack of books, sample the special programs at the library and in your community, travel near or far, and learn something new —
at summer's pace of course.


Explore and Learn with Your Kids this Summer

Fictional stories help children work through fears and desires, and nonfiction helps them understand processes and observe patterns. Every time you pair a book with an experience, you are giving your child an opportunity to learn more about their world.

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Hands-on experiences give kids a broader framework for new information they might encounter in books. Here are three simple steps to help expand your child's knowledge of the world this summer.

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Building Background Knowledge in the Classroom

Has the pressure of high-stakes testing squeezed out exposure to meaningful content? Learn why it's critical to build that content back into the curriculum and the basic reading texts — the earlier the better.

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When children have limited knowledge about the world, they have a smaller capacity to learn more about it — so building background knowledge is integral to strengthening cognitive processes. Learn more about what this means for the classroom teacher.

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Summer School for Teachers: Podcasting 101

podcasting

Creating original podcasts with your class strengthens skills in research, writing, collaboration, and peer review — and helps kids master the technical side of things, including recording, post-production, and publishing. Learn the practical how-to's in this step-by-step guide.

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Features

It Takes a Whole School to Raise a Reader

Discover the common traits of improved school districts, how school leaders can effectively support school-wide reading initiatives, and the importance of individualized, differentiated professional development for teachers.

Supporting a School-Wide Reading Initiative >

Characteristics of Improved School Districts >

Teacher Knowledge Matters in Supporting Young Readers >

Find more articles in our section for school principals

Summer Tutoring: How's It Going?

Is your son or daughter working with a tutor this summer? Now that July has begun, it's a great time to evaluate your tutoring situation. It's not too late to make a few simple changes that can make a real difference in the remaining tutoring sessions. Read more about tutoring in our Sound It Out Blog — and join the conversation!

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Books & Authors

The Adventures of Judy and Stink: Our Video Interview with Megan McDonald

Megan McDonald

Megan McDonald has written more than 30 books for children, but she is best known for two of her characters: 8-year old Judy (bossy and moody, sometimes) and her little brother Stink (a pest, sometimes). Her books are funny, wise, and true to the all-over-the-map feelings that children have. Reluctant readers are some of her biggest fans: "I've had kids come up to me and say, I read a book like my mom and dad read."

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Things to Do When There's Nothing to Do

Science

Discover great hands-on activities in our new collection of summer-friendly books. Try everything from creating your own pop-ups, to cooking up green eggs and ham (or some other Seussian dish) to building a water-powered rocket. For kids up to 9 years old.

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Best Books for Educators

We asked our research advisors and project partners for their summer reading recommendations. Here are three excellent selections:

Language and Reading Success (Andrew Biemiller, 1999)
Described as a little gem of a book: very readable, well-grounded in research, and full of practical suggestions for teachers. Biemiller focuses on the relationship between oral language (especially vocabulary) and reading achievement.

Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students (Karen Harris, Steve Graham, Linda Mason, and Barbara Friedlander, 2008)
Developed collaboratively by researchers and teachers, this book is a user-friendly guide to a research-based strategy for planning, writing, and revising. Includes a comprehensive collection of ready-to-use lesson plans.

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (Maryanne Wolf, 2007)
Is the act of reading a miracle? The author integrates psychology and archaeology, linguistics and education, history and neuroscience in this fresh look at the development of the reading brain — written for a lay audience.

Community

Opinions Wanted!

We're interested in finding out what you think about the Reading Rockets website, and hear your ideas on how we can make it more useful for parents and educators. The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. For taking time to help us improve the site, you can enter a random drawing to win a new, blue 4 GB iPod nano, pre-loaded with Reading Rockets podcasts!

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Featured Partner: National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)

The mission of NAESP is to lead in the advocacy and support for elementary and middle level principals and other education leaders in their commitment to all children.

Tips & News from Reading Rockets

  • Reading Tips for Parents. These one-page parent tip sheets are now available in 11 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Korean, Navajo, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. NEW! Tips for parents of babies and toddlers.

  • Reading Rockets News. Take a look at the current issue of our popular monthly e-newsletter on reading.