[teachrchick]

I am a reading specialist working with a small group of fifth graders for RTI, who all need work on fluency. My difficulty is that these fifth graders act negative about everything we work on and basically drag their feet through each activity (reader's theater, poetry reading, independent chpt. book reading). I need some help in motivating these kids. They've all told me they hate to read, but I think the key might be in finding a book they love. Can anyone recommend a great,motivating book for this age and any other advice you have? Thank you in advance!

[cruxian]

When my DD was in 5th grade, she enjoyed reading Tintin books. Have you ever heard of them? She really enjoyed them.

[greenapples]

I have found a read aloud can show kids that reading is a form of entertainment. I always start the year with Louis Sachar's There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom and then move on to Wonder. Kids love these two stories. With them I teach reading strategies from the book Notice and Note. Then kids are expected to use post-its to record thoughts in their own reading. I've found the most reluctant readers are willing to jot a note on a post it. And, the strategies truly help with close reading.

[Sam5]

My students love the books I survived by Tarshis. They are short lower level but not babyish and you could do all kinds of historical connections.

http://www.amazon.com/Survived-Jopli...ed+book+series

[dubby]

The main in-thing that the kids love in my class for free choice reading is the Diary of a Wimpy Kids series or Dork Diaries.

One of my lowest intervention kiddo found The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of School by Ken Derby to be absolutely HILARIOUS. One of my other intervention student loved The Wednesday War, but I given him an audio CD to take home to listen and orally read along with it.

[cmjd2010]

I was reading this thread for ideas, and wanted to thank Green Apple. (I couldn't post a private message, so sorry to anyone this annoys! I am new to Notice and Note, and was thinking about reading There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom. Thanks for helping me to decide!!

[jady_marie]

I teach 6th grade and have a group of four boys who are reluctant readers. We are reading Earthquake Terror and the kids are enjoying this book enough that they have requested to read Runaway Twin, another book by this author, for our next book. We read aloud with everyone taking a turn with a page. After every chapter we do a first, next, then, last conversation and give the author a star and a wish . The star is something we noticed that the author is doing that we liked and the wish could be a prediction or something we wish the author had included. The first, next , then, last conversation is just like it sounds. We summarize each chapter in four sentences.

[bernard1]

Peg Kehert books are awesome!!! (Earthquake terror, escape the giant wave, etc) We are currently reading Fighting Ground with is historical fiction about a young boy who ends up fighting in the Revolutionary War....The kids love it!!!

[0123456]

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[kcapp]

Both of these are series and my fifth graders love them. They are a little hard for low readers, but very motivational and can be easily broken into small chunks of text.