4th grade book reports

How we do book reports- 4th grade literature

This year, instead of choosing a curriculum for comprehension, I discussed with our teacher and decided that we would do book reports instead.

4th grade book reports examples

She helped us choose 4 books and we picked:

M doesn’t like writing and composition is hard for him- so book reports aren’t one of his strong points yet, even though he is a capable reader and his comprehension is great.

I was a bit confused as to what a book report entailed until our teacher sent us some samples, and I managed to create a “process” that works for us which enabled me to “hold his hand” and make sure he gets the most out of it. Here’s how we do it.

1. Read the book

The first step is obviously reading the book. I planned the year so he would read a long and a shorter book per semester. We started with “Around the World in 80 Days” because it was the longest. Moreover, it was full of descriptions in Jules Verne style that tired M after a while, but he managed to finish it and (un)surprisingly he liked it so much that he listened to the audiobook versions of all Jules Verne’s famous books! (less trouble for me in finding him new audiobooks).

To avoid reading fatigue, I split the book into bits, asking him to read 3 chapters per week. This worked great because he didn’t need to do much at once. I did that for all the books, but if he wants to read them faster, I am ok with that, too. He finished Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH in a week.

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Ideally, I would have asked him questions after every chapter or I would have given him small writing assignments every few chapters, but because this was the first year we were doing it and I didn’t want it to be overwhelming (or push him into hating reading), I just let him read as he pleased.

2. Listen to the audiobook and see the movie (if available)

I’ve gotten this idea because I stumbled upon the Audible Audiobooks for some of the books we needed to read. We played them in the night, as bedtime stories.

They are so worth it! Here’s a list of the ones available:

I also rented the movies I could find from Amazon Prime. You can either rent them, buy them or buy the DVDs depending where you are in the world.

By listening to the audiobooks and watching the movies after reading the original book, we could discuss about the differences in them. It was a great exercise for M and I used this opportunity to tell him never to judge a book by its movie.

3. Make an outline of your book reports

The third step actually meant that I would get more involved. We usually start with diagramming and writing down the main idea and supporting details.

I used some teacher guides to help me, and M wither filled them in or I just asked some questions to see his comprehension. The best ones for our books were:

Then, I take a piece of paper and start asking him step by step questions and as he answers them, I write them down for him. After we are done, we read it together, make tweaks and bring it to a final form.

This is the step where I help him the most and I hope that in time he will get used to creating his own outlines and first drafts.

4th grade book reports

4. Book reports – final form

We are actually going to submit 2 final forms: one is handwritten by M. I created a similar one (which we will use in the future) for anyone that wants to download it from our Resource Library.

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The second one is a typed one. This one takes forever to type because M is still not used to all the keys, but I saw it as a good opportunity to use the computer in a practical way and let him learn things freely, as we go.

He is learning how to research information about the author online, how to extract it and reword it, how to look for and save images, how to edit a text on a computer, how to print, and more.

5. Grading and presentation

I am required to use a rubric for grading his reports, and our teacher from Bridgeway Academy was kind enough to send me one. We just love how helpful she is!

At this point, I am checking for comprehension, ability to remember details, and ability to detect the main idea. I am less concerned about him being able to put it all together because I realize it’s a long process that we will continue over the years and he will get better at it by seeing it modeled.

I would have liked to make him present the whole project to us, but I felt like it would bee too much. Maybe from next year we will start working on this aspect as well.

I am also planning to incorporate Teaching the Classics for literature starting from next year. I will be back with an in-depth review of it once I finish the course.

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As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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3 Comments

  1. Laura, mulțumim pentru sugestii. Sunt de mare folos!
    Nu pot accesa secțiunea de resurse de pe blog. Mă poți ajuta? Mulțumesc!

      1. Scuze, abia acum am ajuns sa răspund. Trebuie doar sa te înscrii în newsletter pe prima pagina și Primești un email cu parola :). Mă bucur ca ai reușit!

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