Book Talks (and a Freebie!)

Last year, I transformed my reading program and I absolutely loved the Readers’ Workshop structure that I was able to create in my classroom.  One part of the program that I enjoyed was the book talks I had the kids do.  Each month, the students in my room were required to read at least one book from a specific genre.  After reading that book, they had to give a book talk on the book.

Book talks (or book commercials) are simpler than the traditional book report, and the kids seemed to enjoy both giving and listening to them.  

So what is a book talk?  A book talk is like a commercial for a book that the students have read.  They are not long (only about two minutes in length).  During the book talk, students were asked to share:

* the book’s title and author

* the cover (or a picture of the cover)

* a little information about the characters and the problem in the story

* some interesting information from the book.

I created a handout with the basics of a book talk and a monthly genre calendar to give to the kids to include in their reading binder.  The handout is available in my TPT store for FREE! (link to product)

If you use Book Talks leave me a comment to let me know what they look like in your classroom!