• Community House Middle School Summer Reading

    We hope everyone has an enjoyable summer filled with fun and a few good books. Summer Reading is carefully selected by our talented ELA teachers for each grade level. Students can expect to engage with Summer Reading in the classroom within the first two weeks of school.  

    Please choose an appropriate title based on your reading level (lexile), class placement, and interest from the list below. If you are unsure of your lexile level, please visit to take a very short assessment to gauge your lexile range. Lexile Levels are provided to help guide (not dictate a choice). Please know that with works of fiction, lexile levels often do not seem high enough; however, lexile level is not the only indicator of a complex text. 

    PARENTAL WARNING: Some of these titles may have content that families/parents may find inappropriate due to the nature of the book and who it is about, as well as its level.  Please be sure to research your chosen title before purchasing and reading.

    If you have any questions, please feel free to email kristen.ohaver@cms.k12.nc.us at any time. For RISING 9th graders: Please check with your new high school about Summer Reading, as no titles were provided at the time of publication. 
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  • All (Honors and Standard) Rising 6th Grade Students

  • Rising HONORS 7th Grade Students

  • Rising STANDARD 7th Grade Students

  • Rising 8th Grade Students

  • Annotations: What does this look like?

    ALL Cavaliers students need to annotate their Summer Reading title. For rising 7th and 8th graders, for your title, please apply strategies that your Language Arts teachers have taught you over the past two years.  For rising 6th graders and other interested students, please use the links and documents below.

    When annotating, rising 7th and 8th grade students should follow the NOTICE, NAME, and EXPLAIN format described below:

    Notice

    Highlighting, underlining, or other text marking indicating important text.

    Name

    Name the annotation. What is it? Is it a signpost? Is it a literary element?

    Explain

    Why is this text significant? Answer the signpost question. Connect the literary element to a larger idea from the text. (Ex. Strong language contributes to tone of…

    Explain the immediate significance and the overall impact on the book as a whole.

    Note: Depending on the length of the chapters in the selected book, students should have about 2-4 annotations per chapter.

    ANNOTATIONS:

    An annotation is a note, comment, or concise statement of the key idea(s) in a text or a portion of a text. Annotations are commonly used in reading instruction and in research. Please see the of Sharon Draper’s Out of My Mind for a model on annotating a text. Not every page needs to look like the model. 

    Annotating is meant to slow readers down and engage them more deeply in reading comprehension and questioning the text. It is NOT about filling the page for quantity. The parent model linked on the school webpage is meant to showcase many types of annotations and Signposts. Students do NOT need to annotate every page in a book. Annotating is meant to be a personal and organic process that will aid in comprehension, not just a completion activity.

    Parents: For further reading on annotations, please enjoy Mortimer Adler’s short work “How to Mark a Book” at this link: