Teaching Reading Strategies with the Super Reader League

The Super Reader League is a great way to create excitement and engagement while teaching your kids all of the Reading Strategies. This blog post shares how we build up to our first visit from the SRL. You can also read all about the things the SRL sends the kids for each of the "powers".

At the beginning of the year we carefully craft our read aloud time.  We make sure that we read books that have great illustrations that will support effective retelling.  Books with rhythm and rhyme work well too.  Begin a collection of these books.  If you have multiple copies of the book, great. Collect all of them.  Once you have a collection that contains enough books for each child to receive one, you are ready to "wrap" up a special gift.  Place the books inside gift bags, one for each child.

Invite the kids to open up their gift! They are so excited because these are the books that you have carefully selected! These are the books that they can easily retell.

Once each child has their gift opened, quickly make a line and parade throughout the school. As we marched through the school, we chanted..."We are readers! We are readers!" After the parade, invite the kids to place this book inside their special book box.  This is when we introduce the idea of each child having their own box of books for independent reading time.

When we get back to the room, we find a special box has been delivered to our room! Create a fun box with a special label that identifies the sender as the Super Reader League. With care and anticipation, open the box! Here's what you will find in the box:

Letter From the Super Reader League

In the box you will find a letter from the Super Reader League.  The letter always congratulates the kids on how well they are doing. Then, it introduces the "power" that is to be highlighted. 

The Gift

The SRL always sends some sort of "gift". In our first box celebrating book lover power, the SRL sent bookmarks.  The kids added the bookmarks to their book boxes to remind them to always love their books.

Super Power Strip

The next thing in the box is the super power strip.  The kids will each get one of these for each power. When they get the first power, we also include a metal ring for each child. This ring will hold all of the power strips.  These power strips remind kids of each of the super powers and how to use them to be good readers.  These are also kept in their book boxes.

Super Reader League Powers Anchor Chart

To make the anchor chart begin with a blank piece of poster board.  Glue the title to the top of the chart. Each time the class gets a new box from the SRL, the card for that power is included. Add the cards to the chart. We use velcro dots. This way we can reuse them next year!  There are 12 powers in all. These are the first 6.

Super Power Chants

For each of the powers we wrote a jingle using a familiar tune.  Invite the kids to add the chant to their poetry notebook. They also keep this notebook in their book boxes.

Super Power Craftivity

For each power, the kids also receive a craft activity. Here are a few from the first 6 powers.  For book lovers power, the kids made these fun crowns.  After cutting out the crown, the kids cut out and past the habits of book lovers around the band.

For picture power, the kids make this fun retelling craft.  After cutting out the camera, add the strip to retell Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  As they slide the strip through the camera, they retell the story.

For partner power, we made these fun partner necklaces. Invite the kids to cut out their own dog tags and each partnership to cut out one medallion. The kids string beads in a pattern stopping half way to add the medallion and the dog tag. Finish the pattern.

Find your book buddy. Match your medallion and your will receive partner power!

For sight word power, we made these fun SRL paper bag puppets. We added our sight words to our capes!

This is an example of the box for partner power. All of the things you see in the picture are placed in the box from the Super Reader League. How fun to open the box and find all of the goodies inside!

All of these items are found in the Super Reader League Unit 1.  Be sure and watch for Unit 2. It will have the other 6 powers.