Summer Reading Lists

We all know it is important to keep our students reading during the summer, but what do we encourage them to read? Below are links to my summer reading suggestions for Summer 2017

Entering this grade in August/September 2017:
Kindergarten
1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
5th Grade
6th Grade
Middle School
High School
College

Be sure to check with your local bookstores and public libraries for summer reading programs and events!

Resources and Book Lists:
Kindergarten- Grade 2: 

• Caldecott Award Winners
• Geisel Award Winners
• ALSC Graphic Novels List
• Star of the North Award Winners and Nominees
• Scholastic Summer Reading List
• We Need Diverse Books End of Year Suggestions
• 50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They are 12

Grade 3- Grade 5:

• Newbery Award Winners
• ALSC Graphic Novels List
• Maud Hart Lovelace Winners and Nominees
• Scholastic Summer Reading List
• We Need Diverse Books End of Year Suggestions
• 50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They are 12

Middle School:

• Newbery Award Winners
• ALSC Graphic Novels List
• Maud Hart Lovelace Winners and Nominees
• Scholastic Summer Reading List
• We Need Diverse Books End of Year Suggestions
• 2017 Rainbow Book List

High School/ Young Adult:

• Scholastic Summer Reading List
• We Need Diverse Books End of Year Suggestions
• YALSA 2017 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults
• Printz Award Winners
• 15 Books Every High School Student Should Read
• YALSA 2017 Great Graphic Novels for Teens Top 10
• 2017 Rainbow Book List

College:

• 25 Essential Books That Every College Student Should Read
• Alex Awards
• 25 Books to Help You Understand America in 2016
• 9 Graphic Novels Every Adult Should Read

It Takes a Village: Tools to Help Keep the Community Informed, Engaged, and Supportive

The Media Center is an integral part of the school community. Media Specialists and Librarians are aware of this, but how do we keep the community informed of all we do? How do you engage your school and the community itself in the Media Center programs? How do you in turn get the community to stand behind the Media Center and support the many programs? Well, below I will tell you what I have done to get our community involved here. I'd love to hear how you get your community involved as well.

• Web Site: The Media Center website has all of the information about everything that happens in the Media Center. I designed my Media Center website using Google Sites and some HTML coding. I tried to design it to be simple and functional so that parents, staff, and students could easily access what they were looking for. On the home page, I had links to my contact information, newsletter sign up, the school library catalog, the public library website, and useful websites and online sources.
  
  I also included a link to a page with our schedule embedded and the objectives to lessons currently being taught in the Media Center. Aside from regular Media Center business on the home page, I also included a page for our Monday Morning Makers and Coding Club programs. On these pages, I embedded videos that helped to explain why we have these programs and what they are. I also included written information about the programs and a schedule of events. I taught the students how to use the website and sent home information about the website in our school newsletter. You can access the Pinewood Media Center website by visiting: https://sites.google.com/a/monticello.k12.mn.us/pinewood-media-center/
• Newsletters: During open house, parents were able to sign up for the Media Center newsletter. The teachers also sent a sign up link to all their parents. I easily could have sent the newsletter out to all the parents, but I did not want it to be looked at like spam. I did not want it to be irritating. To manage my newsletter, I chose to use the free email marketing tool Vertical Response. This program allows you to create various contact lists (I also use this to send out reminders about coding club) and easily lay out your newsletter with a number of templates to choose from. You can also add a widget into the newsletter for people to share the newsletter on Facebook and Twitter. You can access my March Newsletter here. In my newsletter, I share reading tips, blog posts, and upcoming events.
•  Blog Posts: Another way that I reach out to the community and to other Media Specialist is through this blog which you are reading right now. I set up my blog using blogger in college and began updating it again a little over a year ago. On the blog, I share about lessons I am currently teaching, recommend books or authors, and share about technology I have found useful. Use the navigation bar on the side to browse through some of the other posts I have written.
• Social Media: I use Twitter and Facebook to connect with the community and with other Media Specialists. I share short blurbs of information on both, things like cool apps, book suggestions, and Media Center happenings. I also share my newsletter and blog posts through social media. To make things easier and save time, I often schedule my posts ahead of time using a tool called Hootsuite. This allows you to create your posts and schedule when you would like them to go out. I often schedule 2 weeks of posts at a time.
  
   To increase followers on social media, I often tag others that are relevant to the post and utilize hashtags, especially the school's hashtag. I also include links to my social media profiles on my website and blog and in my newsletter. To engage with colleagues, I find Twitter chats are very engaging.You can find me on Twitter at @LisaNewhouse4 and on Facebook on my page Media Specialist 4 Life.
• PTO and School Board Presentations: Finally, in person meetings and presentations are also important to engaging with the community. I have made it a habit to attend school board meetings and PTO meetings. I also try to attend a variety of school events. It is so much fun to see the students outside of the normal school day. I have also found that a great way to get the parents and school board invested in programs is to invite them. We have had administrators and school board members visit our coding club and have even presented about coding to our school board. Here is the video that we shared last fall:

Graphic Novels: Why They're Not Junk

If you have been paying attention to the books that children are gravitating towards these days, you may have noticed that many of them are choosing what appear to be comic books. These books that are so popular now are called graphic novels. As Amy Mascott mentions in her blog, these books, just like your average novel, have defined characters and complex plots. Unlike your average novel, they are written in a comic book format with panels of pictures and with text mostly in speech or thought bubbles. You may think that these books are less worthy to be read than novels that are purely in text, but I assure you that graphic novels are a key to reading success for many students.
When trying to get a reluctant reader to read, you may not have much luck with a book full of words, but once you show them a book with illustrations and words they are much more intrigued. There are numerous students that would not read if it were not for graphic novels. These books are thick and have an interest level appropriate to the child so that they are not embarrassed to be caught reading it like they might a picture book, but with the help of the illustrations, students can comprehend what is happening in the book and feel successful at reading. Once students have built confidence through reading graphic novels, they often turn to regular novels with similar plots. This is why graphic novels based on the classics or on popular chapter books are wonderful. A student who reads The Lightning Thief graphic novel may be so intrigued that they then try the original version of this book. For these reasons, I often encourage my struggling readers to try graphic novels.
"But my student is not a struggling reader and they are still reading this junk!" I assure you these books are not junk. There is quite a bit of value to reading graphic novels. Many graphic novels use rich, challenging vocabulary words, but students are able to comprehend what is going on because they have the assistance of the rich, beautiful artwork. Thus through reading graphic novels, students are able to learn new vocabulary words and improve their reading fluency. There are also graphic novels that are based on classic literature. I love these books because they make complex texts accessible to all students. Even a student who is an avid reader can struggle with the vocabulary and text structure of a classic novel, but through reading the graphic novel version they are able to comprehend the text and access the important lessons embedded in the story. The same goes for graphic nonfiction. There are a number of nonfiction books that have come out in the last few years in graphic novel form. These are wonderful for learning history and as biographies since you are able to get a real picture of what happened that you would not be able to get from a traditional nonfiction book. Finally, reading graphic novels requires another whole set of skills that a novel does not require. Students have to track the story through cells, learn to read both pictures and words together, and learn to slow down and really breathe in the whole story. All of these are reasons why I have no problem with my students reading graphic novels and even encourage them to be read.
How do you feel about graphic novels? Why? If you like them, what are some of your favorites?

Please help us grow our graphic novel collection at Pinewood by supporting our Donors Choose project.

Further Reading:
Anderson, M. (2016). 10 reasons to let your kids read graphic novels. Retrieved from http://www.metroparentmagazine.com/story/life/books/2016/09/06/10-reasons-let-your-kids-read-graphic-novels/88072448/
Filucci, S. (2016). How comics helped my kid love reading. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/how-comics-helped-my-kid-love-reading
Jones, E. (2014.) 5 great reasons to read graphic novels. Retrieved from http://playfullearning.net/2014/12/5-great-reasons-read-graphic-novels/
Mascott, A. (2017). 3 reasons graphic novels can be great for young readers. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/parents/blogs/scholastic-parents-raise-reader/3-reasons-graphic-novels-can-be-great-young-readers