Summer Literacy

Primary School

Sora, Lowell’s e-book and audiobook collection of 14,000 titles, makes exploring books easy. The Sora app is available on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops, and students can download titles for offline access. 4th through 8th-grade students have free access using their Lowell logins. Choose Lowell in the drop-down menu.

We also encourage visiting your local public library for summer reading, resources, and programming!
We’ve provided some recommended reads to get you started, but above all, let your child lead the way and select which books they want to read (yes, even graphic novels)! Students will be exposed to various texts throughout the year, and allowing your student to develop agency and read for pleasure helps them see themselves as a reader, paving the way for the development of reading skills.

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  • Rising Kindergarten

    Opportunities for Reinforcement

    Language, literacy, and math skills are playfully woven into each part of our day in our Kindergarten classrooms. These Kindergarten Summer Work 2025 are intended as springboards for fun and exploration throughout the summer months. Whether you complete every activity or choose only those that interest your child, please view the calendar as a chance to prompt your child’s inner mathematician, scientist, and creative thinker!

  • Rising 1st Grade

    Opportunities for Reinforcement

    • Use this list of “trick words.”
      • Keep these words fresh by using magnetic letters, alphabet blocks, or Scrabble pieces to build words, and add a timer and/or an additional player to make it a race.
      • Make it sensory. Use sand, sandpaper, and shaving cream, and write your trick words in or on the media.
      • Play Bingo or Memory.
      • Cut and paste the needed letters from the newspaper or magazines to form words.
    • Encourage students to document their adventures and write letters to friends far and near. They can even dabble in reviewing the books they read.
      • Students can chronicle their adventures in a new journal, document them in a Google doc, or even write a postcard to a friend or teacher.
      • For students who like to practice handwriting or prefer writing on the familiar lined paper, you can download and print copies of the Fundations Writing Paper.

    Skills Learned In the Previous School Year

    • Letter-sound association
    • Trick words
    • Tracking print
    • Recalling details and the sequence of events from a story
    • Composing a story with a beginning, middle, and end
    • Using inventive spelling
    • Beginning sentences with an uppercase letter and ending with appropriate punctuation

  • Rising 2nd Grade

    Opportunities for Reinforcement

    • Use this list of “trick words.”
      • Keep these words fresh by using magnetic letters, alphabet blocks, or Scrabble pieces to build words, and add a timer and/or an additional player to make it a race.
      • Make it sensory. Use sand, sandpaper, and shaving cream, and write your trick words in or on the media.
      • Play Bingo or Memory.
      • Cut and paste the needed letters from the newspaper or magazines to form words.
    • Encourage students to document their adventures and write letters to friends far and near. They can even dabble in reviewing the books they read.
      • Students can chronicle their adventures in a new journal, document them in a Google doc, or even write a postcard to a friend or teacher.
      • For students who like to practice handwriting or prefer writing on the familiar lined paper, you can download and print copies of the Fundations Writing Paper.

    Skills Learned In the Previous School Year

    • Letter-sound association
    • Trick words
    • Making connections between texts on similar topics
    • Understanding characters and settings atypical from personal experience
    • Blending factual information with imaginative details to create a story
    • Using inventive spelling to closely approximate beginning, middle, and end sounds
    • Beginning sentences with an uppercase letter and ending with appropriate punctuation

  • Rising 3rd Grade

    Opportunities for Reinforcement

    • Read with epic!
    • Play word games like Scrabble, Jr., Bananagrams, and Apples to Apples, Jr. Use this list of “trick words.”
      • Keep these words fresh by using magnetic letters, alphabet blocks, or Scrabble pieces to build words, and add a timer and/or an additional player to make it a race.
      • Make it sensory. Use sand, sandpaper, and shaving cream, and write your trick words in or on the media.
      • Continue adding words to their personal dictionary.
      • Encourage students to document their adventures and write letters to friends far and near. They can even dabble in reviewing the books they read.
      • Students can chronicle their adventures in a new journal, document them in a Google doc, or even write a postcard to a friend or teacher.
      • For students who like to practice handwriting or prefer writing on the familiar lined paper, you can download and print copies of the Fundations Writing Paper.

     Skills Learned In the Previous Year

    • Reading a variety of texts with expression
    • Trick words
    • Making predictions in both fiction and non-fiction texts
      Inferring character traits, motivations, and feelings
    • Including interesting introductions and conclusions
    • Including details, definitions, or how-to steps
    • Organizing information on one topic into multiple paragraphs

  • Rising 4th Grade

    Required Reading


    Opportunities for Reinforcement (optional)

    • We encourage students to document their adventures and write letters to friends far and near. They can even dabble in reviewing the books they read.
      • Summary Template: This is an example of what students should include in their book summary.
      • Book Review Template: Have students get creative and create a fun way to write a review. Here’s an example of what they should include in a book review.
      • They can chronicle their adventures in a new journal, document them in a Google doc, or even write a postcard to a friend or teacher.
      • Editor’s Checklist

    Skills Learned In the Previous Year

    • Summarizing a text
    • Making comments about a book (i.e., book review)
    • Reading a variety of genres
    • Writing in paragraph format
    • Using paragraphs and skipped lines to separate what happened first from what happened later (and finally) in a story
    • Editing

  • Rising 5th Grade

    Required Reading

    Each student should read Stargazing by Jen Wang over the summer. We will use this shared text during the first few weeks of school.

    Recommended Reading

    Students should read one book from the list below.
    Additional Resources

    You can find summer reading books in a variety of places and formats. Try the links below to see book lists, recommendations, and digital reading resource options. Enjoy ready-made resources that enrich your family’s summer reading adventure!

    Opportunities for Reinforcement

    We encourage students to document their adventures and write letters to friends far and near. They can even dabble in reviewing the books they read.
    • They can chronicle their adventures in a new journal, document them in a Google doc, or even write a postcard to a friend or teacher.

    Skills Learned In the Previous School Year

    • Summarizing a text
    • Making comments about a book (i.e., book review)
    • Reading a variety of genres
    • Balancing action, dialogue, and character thoughts/ feelings throughout a story
    • Using different kinds of information, such as examples, details, dates, and quotes, to inform
    • Using paragraphs to separate the different parts or times of the story, or to show when a new character is speaking
    • Editing

Middle School

Read one of the required books for your grade AND one from the Recommended Reading list. Be prepared to complete assignments about each book in language arts during the first week of school. If you have any questions, please contact Melissa Hill, middle school librarian, at mhill@lowellschool.org.

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