There is something about winter that makes me want to read stacks and stacks of books with a cup of hot tea nearby. My children are doing the same. They find a stack of books, a warm blanket, and read for at least an hour.

As part of reading instruction, we focus mostly on really understanding what we read. One of our favorite ways is to read books by the same author. We examine the author’s writing style, the choice of words. We look for patterns in the stories. We try to figure out why the author wrote each book.

I adore having these conversations with my children. They give priceless insights into their thinking, their connections, and their learning. I use these conversations to bridge into real lessons, but you don’t have to tell my kids that. They just think we are talking about books!

Some of our favorite activities from TeacherFileBox are Introducing…the Author and all five of these Book Worm Reports. Kids seem to enjoy presenting their reports at dinner, too!

Here are some of our author studies:

There are so many wonderful children’s authors published today. Who are your favorite authors?

Be sure to leave a comment below so we can all build our list of great authors to study.

---

Contributing Writer

Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website http://www.thrivehomeschooling.com.