Engage Your Readers with Flashlight Fridays

Our literacy team took a new direction this year with our school-wide reading incentive program. We wanted to establish a literacy-rich environment where all students were given the opportunity to participate in literacy celebrations. We did away with required nightly reading minutes, signed reading logs, and rewards given only to students who completed the reading challenge. Alternatively, we focused on creating opportunities for students to enjoy authentic reading, writing, and discussions.

We planned several school-wide activities throughout the year to promote literacy: graffiti walls, book swaps, mystery readers, and Flashlight Fridays. For today's post, let's take a look at Flashlight Fridays.

Reading Wellness: A Summer Book Study

For many of us, summer vacation is officially underway!  Our days will soon be filled with fun, sun, rest, relaxation, friends, family, travel, and maybe even a book or two. ;)

Here at Adventures in Literacy Land we've been planning our summer book study.  We're so excited to announce that the book we've chosen is...

 Reading Wellness: Lessons in Independence and Proficiency by Burkins and Yaris.

Reading Wellness offers teachers a series of lessons to help children read closely and carefully while still honoring their interests as readers.  Join us in July as we learn how to instill confidence, curiosity, and the joy of reading in our students.

The book is available for purchase or to read online {for free} through Stenhouse.

Not only can you comment here on the blog, but you can also link up your posts throughout the week with your own blog posts and thoughts.

We can't wait to hear your thoughts on Reading Wellness!

Epic...There's More To It!

Epic.  I am a HUGE fan.  Have you tried it out?  I know there have been many great posts about the features and benefits of Epic.  And I want to certainly echo those points here; however, this year Epic added some additional features and a great summer incentive to families.  I can't wait to share all this information with you!
(If you have not used Epic, check out Jennifer's post about how to set it up-Here!)

But first things first...after a year of using Epic in the classroom and at home, what did I observe?

• Excitement--students would be so excited to share with me the books that they found.
• Motivation--Epic provides such high quality texts that my students were so motivated to keep reading and exploring new texts.
• Independence--the app is really kid-friendly, easy to use, and navigate.  This means more independent students!

As a teacher (and mom), here is what I love:

• It is free for teachers!
• Each child has their own account.
• Nonfiction to fiction ratio is great.
• Books are based on student interest.
• Some books are read aloud to students.
• I can see who is really trying to read the books and who is just flipping though them.
• New books are constantly being added.

Actually the list could go on and on.  As I was writing this post, I got lost myself in the sea of books that have been added this year.  There were so many that I wanted to click on and read for myself.  But let's move on...

What's new to Epic?  As of April 28th, students can access Educational Videos on Epic.  And they are popular!!  The video that I heard most often at the end of year was "Money" from Flocabulary.

When I doing some research on their site, you do have some controls over these videos because they can be pretty exciting and hard to stop watching.  You can check out that information HERE.

Another addition that occurred in April was the Home Access Program.  Teachers can give their families access to Epic at home for one month FREE without providing any credit card information. This is wonderful because I am always looking for more ways to add to their home library!

Right now Epic is providing free access to families through July 31st with the hope that this will help with the summer slide!  Yes!!  Just direct your families to www.getepic.com/summer and they can read, read, read until July 31st!!
Do you have a favorite feature from Epic?  I would love to hear about it!!

Promoting a Reading Challenge

At the end of each school year, we have had an End of the Year Reading Challenge. This can really be done anytime throughout the school year, but we find it keeps the kids reading right up until the end of the year. We do the Reading Challenge for one month (usually May). The challenge is between all of the First Grade classes and we set a class goal of 500 books. If the class gets to 500 books, then we have an ice cream party. We also have some other requirements. Each student has to have at least 20 individual books. Of course, you are always going to have a few kids who don’t do their reading and they haven’t since the beginning of the school year. We make sure that they also hit the goal. We have them record their books read during independent reading or they stay in for recess and read a book or two before going outside. We really want to make sure they are doing their fair share and contributing. Most times, the kids who haven’t read at home all year will do some of their reading at home during this month. We really talk to them about responsibility and how they can do it themselves without the help of their parents. We have monthly reading logs and add up the books once a week. We have a big graph that hangs in the hallway and the kids love to see how everyone is doing. All of the classes met the goal this year and we asked parents to donate toppings for the ice cream and we provided the ice cream. Who doesn’t love a friendly competition and ice cream??? I made a little freebie if you ever want to try a Reading Challenge! Just click on the picture above!