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12 Fun Ways for Your Students to Respond to Reading

Have you ever loved a book so much that you couldn’t wait to tell someone about it? As adults, we know that feeling! Maybe that’s why book clubs are more popular than ever. From Oprah, to Reese Witherspoon, to Sarah Jessica Parker – book clubs are everywhere. This genuine feeling of joy sparked by a book is what we, as teachers, want for our students.

Within our classrooms, we can offer students options for sharing their love of books. By creating a project or sharing a response to reading, a student can tell an audience his or her thoughts and feelings about a recent read. There are both high-tech and low-tech avenues by which readers can do this!

Analog Projects

Pencil and paper…it’s not going anywhere! So get out those glue sticks and sharpen those colored pencils.

•Book Cover – students can re-design a book cover with their choice of images

•Paper Bag Book Report – a simple lunch sack is the canvas for a summary, character description, and rating. Inside the bag, students put items that remind them of the story.

•Diorama (or triorama) – using a shoebox for a diorama, students can depict a favorite scene from the book. With a triorama, students can show favorite characters, multiple scenes, and even add an alternate ending.

•Cereal Box Book Report – students cover a cereal box with all of the details about the book. The name of the fictional cereal must correspond with the title of the book (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry might correspond to ‘Thunder Oats’). The ingredients panel might include a list of characters from the book along with their character traits.

•Character Journal – readers create journal entries from the perspective of a book character.

•Scrap Book – Students create pages for a scrapbook showing important events in the main character’s life.

Digital Projects

As we know, our students LOVE technology. There are many response options involving some degree of tech!

•Talk Show – Students could interview the ‘author’ or one of the characters. So many choices for style – from man-on-the-street to an investigative reporter!

Infographic – Do your students doubt their artistic abilities? Making an infographic incorporates art and information, and can be much less intimidating for less-artistic youths. Google Drawing, Canva and Adobe Spark Post streamline the whole process!

Dramatic Scene – Using the camera on an iPad, students can record a memorable scene from the book or even an alternate scene or ending.

•Create a Comic – Students can use a variety of apps including Comics Head, Pixton EDU, and Strip Designer to summarize the entire book, or show the turning point in a story.

•Social Media Posts – Challenge students to take an important scene and rewrite it as a series of text messages between characters. Students could also create a book talk Reel persuading others to read the book. 

No prep digital responses

The ideas shared above are great for book projects, but sometimes teachers want students to respond to books in other ways, too. Looking for a zero-prep alternative that will easily engage remote learners as well as those in class? Check out this resource! It includes a huge variety of engaging ways for students to respond to text.

Looking for a bio-poem? You’re in the right place! Focusing on theme or problem and solution? Look no further. These attractive, easy-to-use templates will be your go-to tool for capturing your students’ thoughts, feelings and reactions to the great books they’re reading. Click here to see the digital reading response resource.

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Teachers Love

These are great and my student loves them! These Boom Cards are perfect for my students to provide extra assignments to continue reinforcing the skills they are working on in their general ed class (virtually). I wish I had the skills to create them myself!
Stephanie R.

Volume Boom Cards
Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-22T20:19:10-04:00
These are great and my student loves them! These Boom Cards are perfect for my students to provide extra assignments to continue reinforcing the skills they are working on in their general ed class (virtually). I wish I had the skills to create them myself! Stephanie R. Volume Boom Cards

Teachers Love

I love the way the graphic organizers are scaffolded so that students work on each step of a RACES answer. I'm a tutor who works with students with language LDs and this approach has been fantastic for them. Having the editable graphic organizers makes it easy for me to keep creating new and different pages for students who need to extra practice on a particular part of the RACES answer. Thank you so much!
Kate M.

Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-22T20:24:32-04:00
I love the way the graphic organizers are scaffolded so that students work on each step of a RACES answer. I'm a tutor who works with students with language LDs and this approach has been fantastic for them. Having the editable graphic organizers makes it easy for me to keep creating new and different pages for students who need to extra practice on a particular part of the RACES answer. Thank you so much! Kate M. RACES Writing Strategy for Written Responses

Teachers Love

These are AMAZING!! Highly engaging for my students, constantly spiraling, and also gives me the information I need to see what we need to work on. Thank you so much!!
Kristi R.

Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-22T20:25:15-04:00
These are AMAZING!! Highly engaging for my students, constantly spiraling, and also gives me the information I need to see what we need to work on. Thank you so much!! Kristi R. 5th Grade Math Spiral Review

Teachers Love

Amazing resource! Students loved working on this to show their parents during fall conferences. Their faces lit up as they went through the slides and read aloud their goals for the trimester and what they were proud of.
Jessica S.

Student Led Conference Digital Portfolio
Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-24T19:42:58-04:00
Amazing resource! Students loved working on this to show their parents during fall conferences. Their faces lit up as they went through the slides and read aloud their goals for the trimester and what they were proud of. Jessica S. Student Led Conference Digital Portfolio
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Stress-Free Teaching