It is the last week of school before the holidays. What can you do to keep the students reading, while staying in the spirit of the holiday season? Here are some ideas to try to combine the holiday festivities with reading activities. Share A Favorite Holiday Book in Your Learning Style Invite the students to bring in their favorite holiday book. Each day, several of them can have a chance to read the whole book (if short), or their favorite page or chapter from the book (if a long book) with the class. They can supplement their reading with a presentation in their best learning style. For example, a visual student can have pictures they cut out from magazines mounted to go with the story. An auditory student can share sound effects or a song to go with the story. A tactile student can draw pictures that go with the story, or bring in hands-on objects that match the story. A kinesthetic student can act out the scene from the story. In this way, the student is not only involved in selecting the story, but bringing it to life in their best learning style. (To find out more about learning styles, click on the learning style testing page, or go to the parent seminar page on Learning Styles). Holiday Song Read-Along Have students bring in the words to their favorite holiday songs. Each day, take turns having different students read the words to the songs to the class first, and then have the class sing along. Holiday Recipe Bake-Off Have students take turns bringing in their favorite recipes and the baked goods to go with it. Before the class digs in to eat, they can get a copy of the recipe and read them aloud! Holiday Word Search A good way to practice phonics skills and to have students find holiday words that go with a particular pattern. Example: holiday words with short vowels; holiday words with consonant blends; 3-syllable holiday words; holiday words with prefixes or suffixes, etc. More Resources If you would like more ideas for learning games to improve reading skills some recommended resources are: Your Child Can Be a Great Reader, Solving Your Child's Reading Problems, How to Teach Literal and Inferential Comprehension through Learning Styles; How to Teach Accelerated Phonics through Learning Styles; Using Pokemon to Teach Reading Comprehension Skills; and Using Pokemon to Teach Phonics Reading Skills. These are available through bookstores, Internet stores, and this website. Free Book Contest: Next Seminar: Your Choice! If you would like a free seminar on a particular topic, this is your chance to write in your request. Email your request to: readinginstruction@yahoo.com The teacher whose request for the topic for the next seminar, coming on-line on January 15, will get a free book! Happy Holidays! ReadingInstruction.com