National Read Across America Week starts on March 2, 2026. The week is a nationwide effort to celebrate reading and reinforce the importance of reading with a focus on young children. It’s within National Reading Month in March, so it’s a great time to reinforce reading across the school day. Check out these Read Across America activities and ideas to get your students excited about reading!
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FREE PRINTABLE
Read Across America Activity Bundle
Grab our free Read Across America printable bundle with worksheets and activities, including a state-themed reading tracker, a book list, reading logs, bookmarks, challenges, and more!
Make reading even more fun with themes and additions like stuffed animal reading buddies or special reading chairs. Transform your school cafeteria, gym, or library into a campground and ask families to bring sleeping bags.
As students are reading, have them search for the items on a list such as parts of speech, story elements, or different genres of books. Use the Reading Scavenger Hunt worksheet in our Read Across America printable bundle for ideas.
Book talks are a great tool to give students a sneak peek at books that might not be on their radar. Start each morning with a brief talk, each one about a book with a different theme or from a different genre.
Get kids amped up about reading with a little friendly competition. Have each class keep track of either how many minutes or how many pages they read each day. Set a goal for how many hours or books you read and, if you meet your goal, have a classroom celebration.
Read Across America Week is all about sharing books we love. Use a pizza box, a costume, or another format to have students write about what they’re reading.
Grab these four book report templates, ready to print and help you put a new spin on fiction or nonfiction book report assignments.
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
6. Invite mystery readers
Everybody loves an engaging read-aloud, no matter their age. Set up a roster of guest readers (parents, grandparents, school staff, even local authors) to visit your classroom and read to your students. If you’re extra ambitious, why not set up a “Masked Reader” event (like the TV show “The Masked Singer”)? Your kids will be super-engaged as they try to identify who is sitting in the reader’s chair. Check out this list of read-alouds.
Courtesy of Ms. Tranchilla, 2nd Grade Teacher
7. Dress up like book characters
Dress up like your favorite book character, such as Olivia the pig, Ms. Frizzle, or Camilla Cream from A Bad Case of Stripes. Encourage your students to do the same!
Have students prepare and read a funny poem or a poem they’ve written in an open mic event. Older students can focus their readings on famous poems or poems by Shakespeare.
Choose a theme to read about each day, or dive into one theme during the week. Here are some great book lists to start looking for perfect theme-related reads:
Another one of our favorite Read Across America activities: Expand your readers’ palettes with a book tasting. Much like a food tasting, students circulate around the room, spending a few minutes checking out the front and back covers, reading the inside flaps, and browsing the book for a first impression. Then they record their observations on a note catcher for future reference.
Many times kids find a genre they love and stick with it to the exclusion of the many other wonderful genres available. Read Across America Week is a perfect opportunity to encourage them to branch out in their reading!
Help get books into your students’ hands by organizing classroom book swaps. These simple Read Across America activities encourage kids to bring a book or two from home that they feel ready to part with (with their parents’ permission, of course). Then, on the day of the swap, lay out the books and give the kids time to browse. Make sure every child gets one book before anyone gets more. Ask around the building to see if other teachers or the librarian have books they can contribute.
13. Literary March Madness
Take the idea of the March Madness brackets and compare books, like this teacher did.
Try this book bracket with your class. You’ll get this printable plus more activities and printables in our free Read Across America bundle.
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
14. Do an author study
Dive into the talent behind some of your students’ favorite stories with an author study or two. For example, you could study Kevin Henkes by reading Waiting and My Garden to compare similarities and differences among literary styles.
While physical books will always have a place in our hearts (and our classrooms!), you can’t beat e-books for their convenience and ability to serve kids with many types of learning differences. Encourage students to browse e-book collections to see if they can find titles that you don’t have in your library or that they are waiting on. E-book libraries are also a great way to assign students books you think they would like.
Looking for a fun way to motivate your students to read? Try this free printable reading challenge where kids color in each completed reading task on a bookmark as they go.
Read and write poetry all week and month long! Start by reading both famous and less famous poems by well-known poets. Then, encourage students to write their own poetry. After all, there are poems for every kid, from alliteration to mathletes.
Grab these eight worksheets covering common poetry types. They provide background on the poetry types and examples, as well as space and directions for students to write their own.
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
18. Flashlight reading
Bring in flashlights and blankets and dim the lights. Maybe even make it a PJ day! Students read by the beam of their flashlights. It’s a fun tradition to start during Read Across America Week.
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teatchers
19. Reading Bingo
Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned game of bingo? Try this version with a twist. Have your learners mingle with their classmates to fill out a Reading Bingo card.
Reading buddies are so much fun! Here are some ways to get students reading with a new friend:
Invite older students in to read with younger ones, or vice versa.
Contact a local animal organization to see if they have any therapy dogs that would be good for reading buddies (check to make sure students don’t have allergies first).
Put out a bin of stuffed animals for students to read with.
Create a class mascot that students can read with.
We Are Teachers
21. Hats Off to Reading Dr. Seuss activity
If you’re in the younger grades, spending a day or lesson on Dr. Seuss can either kick off Read Across America Week or be a fun activity in the mix of it all.
Cuddle up around the “campfire” and read scary stories. If you want to make an event of it, have students bring sleeping bags or tents in to make the day a camp-reading day.
Help students understand what makes stories so engaging by mapping a few different stories. When students understand story structure, they get so much more from every narrative.
These six printable story maps take students from a basic understanding of stories (beginning, middle, end) to a complex understanding of how chapters come together to organize a full story.
Amazon
26. Bring books into science
Read Across America Week isn’t just for the literacy block! Bring books into content areas, with ideas like this Where the Wild Things Are lesson to teach animal adaptations.
A read-a-thon is an event where students earn money for the school, donations, or prizes for reading. Set a class or school goal and track the number of hours or books read during Read Across America Week or the month of March. Choose a literacy nonprofit in your area to donate any proceeds to, and make it a field trip by visiting the nonprofit to learn about the work they do.
Many authors are doing virtual visits, which means you can bring a favorite author into your classroom from across the country. And there are lots of ways to bring an author in, from pre-recorded visits to virtual read-alouds to live visits.
A book fair is a great way to generate excitement about books and bring parents onto campus. There are lots of options for partnering and hosting your fair.
Add a reading nook to your classroom. The corner can match your classroom theme, or incorporate student’s favorite books and ideas, like having stuffed animal reading buddies or a spot to leave book recommendations.
Blackout poetry, where students take a page from an old book or printout and black out words, leaving a poem behind, is a fun way to get students writing poetry.
Who doesn’t love scratching away those gold flakes? This free printable uses scratch-off stickers to engage and motivate kids with a fun reading challenge.
This set of six free printable posters is great for decorating your bulletin boards, reading corner, or school library during Read Across America Week or anytime.
Celebrate the love of reading by giving out new bookmarks. Make it special by writing a personal note to each student on the back and signing your name.
Our printable bundle features a Books Across America coloring sheet to track titles set in each state along with an accompanying book list. It also includes multiple daily reading logs, printable bookmarks, reading challenges, classroom posters, and more!
