Commack Middle School
Summer
Supplemental Reading Program
7th Grade Honors Students Parent Letter
June 2008
Dear Parents,
We are pleased that your child will be taking honors English and honors social studies next year. As you know, the honors program is a fast-paced, enrichment program designed for students who, like your child, are innately interested in English and social studies, who have outstanding reading, writing, and conceptual skills, and who are eager to work hard to learn much.
To prepare for the rigors of the next school year, our honors students in grade 7 are required to read at least two books during the summer. The required reading includes any one of the novels from this selection:
| Bad Boy:A Memoir by Walter Dean Myer | Last Breath: The Limits of Adventure by Peter Stark |
| Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voight | Listening to the Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us by Alexandra Morton |
| The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton |
The Sky So Big and Black by John Barnes |
| I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino | Travel Team by Mike Lupica |
| Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes |
and one of the novels from this selection:
| The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho | Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling |
| A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck | Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George |
| Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan | My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier |
| Face on the Milk Carton by Carolyn B. Cooney | A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle |
The selected novel from the first list will be provided by the school and loaned to the students for the summer. The selected novel from the second list may be purchased or borrowed from the library by the student him/herself. If you have any difficulty finding a novel from the second list, you may be able to find one at school; a number of copies of each book will be available in the main office of the Middle School on a first-come-first-served basis, after June 30.
In addition to their selected summer-reading book from the first list, students will also receive a note-taking assignment for both of the selected books, and a manila envelope containing their individual personal narratives written this past year. All of these materials must be returned to their new English teacher by Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
In our continuing efforts to encourage our students to become life-long readers, we encourage your child to read an additional book chosen from the other titles on his/her grade level or from a supplementary list of books found on the Commack School District website. We also suggest visiting the website www.readwritethink.org/beyondtheclassroom/summer for booklists, book review podcasts, and videos to help make the most of summer reading. As in the past, our local libraries and bookstores are other options for books for our summer reading program.
As always, we appreciate your support of our program, and we thank you for encouraging your child to excel.
Sincerely yours,
Pamela J.
Travis-Moore
Principal