How do you know these are good books, Christina? I’ll share a little secret. I’ve read them. Scary but true. Here are some titles that you might consider for your middle and high school readers:
My Top Six Summer Reads
Struck By Lightning, Chris Colfer (good for high school students)
The Fault in Our Stars, by Jonathan Green (I wept, but I’m a sucker for star crossed lovers of any age)
The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker (Earth is doomed!)
Girl Overboard, Justina Chen Headley ( a great read with an active sporty girl as the protagonist who has a very complex life. Snowboard fans will love!)
North of Beautiful, Justina Chen Headley, (flawed heroine, my favorite!)
If I Stay/ Where She Went, Gayle Forman, (Heroine is in a coma in book one, and must come to terms with her decisions in book two.)
Sci-Fi Fantasy Favorites
Incarceron series, Catherine Fisher (Imagine a jail so large it has a forest!)
Hunger Games series, Suzanne Collins (LOVED)
City of Bones, Mortal Instrument series Cassandra Clare. NYC, demons. Need I say more. House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer. Mexico isn’t Mexico anymore but the country of Opium. And Matteo finds out why he’s being raised by an elderly drug lord, and it ain’t because the old guy loves him. Harvest season!
Books about The 60s
Countdown, Deborah Wiles, (middle school and up. If you want to know anything about the south, the 60s, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, this book is for you. It weaves primary sources throughout the fiction as a way of teaching about the bigger issues of the time period, as well as the personal issues Franny and her family are facing.)
The Help, Kathryn Stockett (definitely for high schoolers who want to know about the 60s and the south)
One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia (great for learning about the Black Panther movement)
The Best Books for learning about the Holocaust
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak (Hint: narrated by Death)
Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli (difficult in its sparse language but stark and haunting to read about a boy who thinks his name is “stoptheif”)
Night, Elie Wiesel (for advanced readers. A tough one, but such a good book)
Great “Chick Lit” Books for Teens
Anything by Sonya Sones: “One of those hideous books where the mother dies” (A favorite, all her books are written in poetry. Quick easy reads!)
Any Sarah Dessen books
Sue Limb Series: Girl 15, Charming but Insane
Anything by Laurie Halse Anderson. You can’t get out of middle school without reading “Speak” or “Wintergirls.” A law in my classroom!
Action Adventure
Maximum Ride Series, James Patterson
Among the Hidden (Shadow Children Series), Margaret Peterson Haddix
The Lightning Thief Series, Rick Riordan
On The Run Series, Gordon Korman (He wrote Schooled, my favorite “fish out of water” story about a kid who’s homeschooled and has to go to middleschool for the first time…Cringeworthy).
Son of the Mob, Hollywood Hustle, Gordon Korman
There you have it. Go forth and read people! Read with your kids, it won’t hurt, and you might have fun doing it. I’m the geek you see in public reading these young adult books, but here’s a secret: they aren’t bad. They have difficult themes, complex plots and are well written. The best thing you can do for your children this summer is to read too. As Gandhi said “you must be the change you want to see in the world.” If you want your kids to read, pick up a book! If you'd like me to craft a summer reading list, create a reading plan for your child, or want specific recommendations in a genre, drop me a line at www.christinadelouise.com. Happy to help!
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Preventing Summer Brain Drain
I know school is winding down, and after a very tricky start
to the 2012-2013 academic year, (Sandy, snowstorms) most of us can’t wait for
the break. But hold on a second. Did you know the most important months of the
school year are the ones in-between? The
ones when your child isn’t even in school?
Yup.
June, July and August are a critical time for your child’s
learning. If you want to help your
child achieve academic success in his or her new grade level, then your job
isn’t done. It’s just begun.
If you child does not read, or “sort of reads” the assigned
summer reading, most likely he or she will loose a level or more in reading,
and will not be ready for the new school year.
For example, if your child is at a level Y in 7th grade, and
does little to no reading, he or she might fall to a level V or W at the end of
summer. This means that at the start of
8th grade, when the texts are at that harder level Y and Z, your
child will be playing catch up. Not a
great way to start the new year.
One study showed that students scored significantly lower at
the end of the summer on standardized tests than they scored on the same test
at the beginning of summer (White,
1906; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Cooper, 1996; Downey et al. 2004). This is even more prevalent in lower income
households, where the prevalence of video games, television often overshadows
the love of curling up with a good book.
Learning doesn’t stop when school stops. Of course you want your student to be
successful academically. But you also
want your child to be successful throughout his life, and to develop a love of
learning. You want your child to be an
independent thinker who is self–motivated and who thinks critically about lots
of issues.
If you want those things for your child, then he or she
needs a variety of opportunities outside of the classroom to engage in learning
exploration and most importantly, your child needs to read over the summer. Things like visiting museums, going on a walk,
or a hike in a state park and observing nature, drawing, painting outdoors are
all ways to stimulate your child’s brain.
Older students might volunteer at a park, as my son did, or
take a course, like sailing, or help at a local camp as a counselor.
There are plenty of sources like New York Times Summer Reading
Contest (which focuses on non-fiction articles from the Times on everything
from North Korea to Justin Beiber) to help support the older students’ summer
reading. Students read the articles,
then respond to the NY Times with why and what interested them about the
article. More information, including
contest rules, can be found at:
www.learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/the-fourth-annual-new-york-times-summer-reading-contest/
For younger students, more prescriptive workbook style
summer reading support can be found at:
As a teacher and a mother, for me, the most important thing
for your child is to set aside some daily dedicated time to read. Depending on the book, and depending on the
child, 30 to 60 minutes a day would suffice.
More later on some things you can do to support your child, questions to
ask about their reading, and finally, how to know if the book your child is
reading is truly a “just right book.”
www.christinadelouise.com
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