Elementary Book Reports Made Easy
Elementary Book Reports Made Easy
Book reports! They either conjure up a feeling of dread or (if you’re like I was when I was a kid) a feeling of joy. Yes, I actually loved writing book reports! I loved to read, and I completely enjoyed putting the books I read into tidy little reports.
The truth is my kids never loved writing book reports as much as I did. To be honest, they never enjoyed writing book reports much at all. That’s why I created this book report form. I want it to serve as a bit of a stepping stone into writing more detailed reports later.
This form is intended for kids from about second through fourth grades (with some wiggle room, of course!) to easily put the important details about a book down on paper.
I love how it is a simple addition to our routine and a simple addition to our homeschool portfolio! Even if you’re not required to keep a homeschool portfolio, though, you may want to keep an occasional book report to serve as a measure of progress just for yourself.
Why should your kids write book reports?
1. Proof of Reading and Understanding
I used to think a good book report’s main purpose was to use as proof that my children did indeed read the assigned books and understand what they read. While that is important, there are other good reasons for having your children write book reports!
2. Practice Sharing Their Own Thoughts with Others
In order to write a book report, it’s necessary for our children to share their thoughts about what they read. They have to consider the characters, what happened to the characters, where the story took place, and other details from the story. They have to go beyond simply thinking about surface-level information and consider what they read more deeply. This is, of course, a very important step as our children get older and read more complex literature.
3. Practice Sharing Sequential Information
As young students, it’s important for our children to understand how to tell a story in sequence. Our children should understand that every story has a beginning, middle, and ending. They will begin to see each story’s problem, climax, and resolution. They will learn through experience that a book (or a retelling of any experience, really) only makes sense when it’s told in sequence.
4. Encouragement to Think from Some Else’s Perspective
As our children write book reports, they necessarily must look at the story from someone else’s perspective. This is another important skill we want our children to develop as they get older. When children are babies and toddlers, they have no understanding of the feelings of others and how their actions affect others. Books are a wonderful (and usually non-threatening) way of exposing them to this reality. And writing book reports can help children become better able to understand this concept by recording information about someone else or from someone else’s point of view.
5. A Way of Sharing and Enjoying a Book with Others
And finally (and maybe most importantly), book reports are a wonderful way of sharing great books with friends and family! We want our children to learn to love books! We want them to understand what they read, enjoy what they read, and look forward to sharing their favorite books with others.
Whether your kids already love books and reading or whether you want to help them learn to love them, we hope this book report printable will help you make that happen in a fun way!
Thank you so much for this book report sheet! My daughter is a developing reader and has trouble summarizing her books that we read, this sheet made it so easy for her to put her thoughts together and she felt great she finished it! ?