Literacy Help for the Summer

Some of my first graders are just beginning to grasp reading and they are doing so well!  I am so proud and excited for them, but I hate to lose them at this point in the year because I don't want their reading to regress.  As a result, I have been trying to come up with a literacy packet or ideas to send home for extra practice over the summer months.  I have to say that in order to become a successful reader, the first step is sight word recognition.  With my lowest group of readers this year, I have pushed and pushed sight word activities during our guided reading time.  After reading a book on their level we usually do some kind of practice or review depending on how much time we have left.  Their favorite game is sight word go fish, but we have also played sight word bingo, flash cards, and memory.  Here are a few more activities I plan to incorporate next year, but that I also plan to send home with some of my students over the summer. 
I recently found this I Can Speed Read packet on TpT, which focuses on racing against yourself on reading sight words.  It is $2.00, but I figure if I can get a child excited about reading and it helps them to recognize their sight words quicker, it is totally worth it!

If fluency and sight word recognition is your goal, you can try this idea called One breath boxes from Teacher Tipster.  Swamp First Graders adapted this idea to create her own one breath boxes based on the Reading Street program.  See if your child/student is able to read all the words in a box in one breath in order to build fluency.  Did I mention that both are free!?!

 These roll and read fluency practice sheets come from First Grade Brain.  They were created based on the Scott Foresman Reading Street.  My school district does not use this program, but they still look like great practice for fluency.  You can find units 2 - 5 on TpT for $2.00 each.

I have also come up with a list of book suggestions for summer, based on guided reading levels.  So many times I have parents frustrated after visiting the library because they just aren't sure what their child is capable of reading.  Hopefully this list will not only offer a few suggestions, but will also allow the parents to compare the varying levels of difficulties.  Please let me know if there are other great books or series I should include or if you disagree with anything you see.  Thank you!

F Books

Cookie’s Week

G books

The Carrot Seed

If You Give a Pig a Party

Clifford series

H Books

Shoo Fly Guy

Danny and the Dinosaur Go to Camp

A Kiss For Little Bear

I Books

A Color of His Own                                                                          

Parts by Tedd Arnold

The Kissing Hand

Froggy series

J Books

Little Critter by Mercer Mayer                                                   

 Curious George

Cowgirl Kate                                                                                        

Nate the Great                                

Henry & Mudge                                                                                                

Fox and His Friends

Little Bear

K Books

Froggy Books

Frog & Toad                                                                                         

Bedtime For Francis

Corduroy                                                                                              

Caps For Sale

Diary of a ________ series

 

L  Books

Cam Jansen                                                                                       

Berenstein Bears

Amelia Bedelia                                                                                 

Get Ready for 2^nd Grade, Amber Brown

Ready Freddy

M Books

Bailey School Kids

Junie B. Jones                                                                                     

Tikki Tikki Tembo

Freckly Juice                                                                                        

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Horrible Harry                                                                                     

Skippyjon Jones

The Littles