Banner Literacy

08/11/2026

From picture books to pirates to kids who learn differently, our back-to-school reading series has covered a lot of ground. 📚

Now we're heading to middle school.

Publishers Weekly's Fall 2026 middle grade preview is full of new titles arriving just in time for the new school year. Tween readers, this one's for you.

Drop your middle schooler's favorite book series in the comments — we'd love to know what they're into! 👇

Series-launching fantasy adventures, innovative mash-ups, and exciting remixes of familiar classics feature in this season’s middle grade offerings.

08/06/2026

As kids head back to school, we want to share something close to our hearts. ❤️

Every child learns differently — and that's worth celebrating. This Reading Rockets booklist features stories about kids navigating dyslexia, ADHD, hearing loss, vision challenges, and more, all with resilience, humor, and heart.

These are books that help kids feel seen — and help classmates build empathy. A win all around.

Which title would you add to the list? 👇

None of us look just the same and we each have our own special interests. That’s true of how we learn, too. As children prepare to go to school, it’s a good time to remember there are various ways of learning, that achievements are wide-ranging, and that learning takes place at different rates. ...

08/04/2026

Another great booklist from Reading Rockets — this one especially for the little ones! 🌟

Think pirates navigating first grade, a girl bringing her buffalo to kindergarten, and a school building nervously waiting to meet its new students. These books make starting school feel like an adventure.

Drop the title of YOUR child's favorite back-to-school book in the comments! 👇

It’s that time of year again! When the days start getting shorter and as temperatures cool down, that could only mean that it’s time for school to start again. There’s a lot to be excited about — new friends, old friends, learning interesting things. But school can be kind of scary, too. Fin...

07/31/2026

Back to school is almost here — is your child ready? 🎒

Reading Rockets put together a wonderful list of books all about starting a new school year — new classrooms, new friends, new teachers, and all the feelings that come with it.

These are great reads to share with your child in the days leading up to the first day. Which one is on your list? 👇

07/30/2026

06/17/2026

Summer enrollment is still open at Banner Literacy! 🎉

06/17/2026

Quick: name your favorite American author. 📖

From Phillis Wheatley to Edgar Allan Poe, Langston Hughes to Sandra Cisneros — American literature has an incredibly rich, layered history. This NEA piece walks through it decade by decade as part of the America250 celebration, and it's a genuinely fascinating read.

Who would make YOUR list? Tell us in the comments! 👇

As we get ready to turn the page on the next 250 years, join us in looking back at America’s rich and varied literary history through the lens of this year’s Poetry Out Loud anthology and NEA Big Read catalog.

06/02/2026

It may sound archaic in today’s tech-centric classrooms, but researchers around the world are digging into the powerful effects of handwriting, revealing how the act of putting pen (or pencil) to paper significantly shapes how we think, remember, and make sense of new ideas. Yet as schools increas...

05/30/2026

A lemonade, a lawn chair, and a great book — that's the summer dream. But for a lot of kids, summer reading quietly slips away.

Tim Bridgman and Terrie Briggs wrote this piece on summer reading motivation — why kids disengage, what the research says about the "summer slide," and how parents can help find the right book match.

One takeaway we still believe in: reading the first chapter together before committing to a book. Simple, and it works.

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