Guided Reading Lots of Ideas To Encourage Kids To Read Literacy

Tons of ideas to stimulate kids to read.

Plenty of short snappy ideas.

The zip file has over a dozen documents.

Sample ideas

Write a letter as a character in your book to either another character in your book, a new invented character or a real-life character.

Write a letter from yourself to a character in your book.

Write a letter to the author of your book – you could say what you like or dislike about the book, or give ideas for what else you would like included in the book.

Have a go at drawing a map of one of the places in the story. See how much you can include and how much detail you can add.

Pretend you are a travel agent and want people to visit the place in the story. Write a paragraph on what you would tell others.

Re-tell an event from the story from another characters point of view. For example, if Jenny is visiting a haunted castle with her wimpy brother Joe, can you change it from Jenny’s point of view to Joe’s?

Re-tell an event from the story as if you are a newspaper reporter and you are writing a newspaper article.

Imagine you could interview a character in your story – what would you ask them? What would their replies be? Write your interview with your character. Set it out so you use 2 different colours for your questions and your character’s answers.

Write the diary entry (or several) for a character in your story after something interesting has happened. Have a go at writing a second diary entry for a different character.

Have a go at continuing the story after the end of the book. What might happen next?

Change the story by changing the actions of one of the characters. Maybe they do something different when it’s a big event, that changes everything!

Change the story into a very simple version for young children and illustrate it too.
Change the story (or part of it) into a comic strip.

Change the story (or part of it) into a poem.

Change the story (or part of it) into a play.

Create a passport or ID card for your character.

Draw a picture of a character from the story. Make sure you use all the detail that the book gives you.

Draw a picture of a place in your story. Make sure you use all the detail that the book gives you.

Design a new blurb for the back cover of the book. You can use colours and pictures as well as writing.

Redesign the front cover of the book.

Design a poster to advertise your book. Think about it’s unique selling points – e.g. what is good about it.

Design a radio advert to advertise your book… maybe you would read some of the exciting bits to the audience. Remember your audience can only listen, not see what you’re doing.

Write about what a character might be thinking or feeling at different stages of the story. You could write it in the first person, or in a speech bubble.