Featured June Teaching Resources
June Teaching Resources for Your Classroom
June is a month that celebrates connection, community, and the joy of summer beginnings. As the school year ends and students look forward to long summer days, it is a great time to build relationships. To help educators bring this spirit to life through literacy, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) has curated a collection of free, easy-to-use teaching resources designed specifically for June, including RIF’s Summer Reading Camp.
This resource center features engaging classroom activities, timely book lists, and standards-aligned lesson plans. It also highlights content from Skybrary, RIF's trusted kids' reading app. It gives educators flexible tools to inspire and support students for summer.
June Teaching Resources and Themes
Monthly Theme: Friendship
June highlights the power of connection by celebrating the friendships, bonds, and relationships that shape who we are. This month's theme encourages students to reflect on what it means to be a good friend, explore how different kinds of relationships enrich our lives, and carry the spirit of kindness and belonging into their summer adventures.
Suggested Focus Points
Exploring the qualities of strong, caring friendships
Understanding how to navigate challenges and disagreements with empathy
Celebrating the diversity of relationships and the people we call friends
Building a sense of belonging and community before summer break
June Book Collections
Explore our themed book collections and free accompanying reading resources.
Summer Reading Collection
Spark a love of reading all summer long by inviting children to explore stories that entertain, inspire, and ignite curiosity. From imaginative adventures to heartfelt tales of friendship and discovery, these books help keep young minds active, engaged, and excited about learning beyond the classroom. The Summer Reading Book Collections are organized by grade level.
RIF Summer Reading Camp 2026
The summer months are a critical time for families to support their children's reading engagement and ensure they don't experience the "summer slide." RIF's Summer Reading Camp empowers families with free resources including fun read-alouds, ready-to-use book lists, and related activities to help children make reading a part of everyday summer fun.
Curriculum & Standards Alignment
All RIF teaching resources are designed to support Common Core State Standards, early literacy development, and sustained reading engagement. This June, students can explore friendship and belonging while strengthening essential literacy skills:
Identifying key ideas and details in texts that feature friendship, kindness, and social-emotional themes
Comparing how characters navigate challenges and grow through their relationships
Building vocabulary related to emotions, empathy, community, and connection
Participating in collaborative discussions about the qualities of good friends and the value of belonging
Making connections between social-emotional learning (SEL) skills and real-life relationships
Whether you use Wit & Wisdom, EL Education, Amplify CKLA, or other similar curricula, RIF resources help you enrich learning with adaptable units and flexible tools for your students.
Skybrary Book Feature: Three Hens and a Peacock
June's featured Skybrary book is Three Hens and a Peacock, a charming and thought-provoking story by Lester L. Laminack. On the Tuckers' farm, nothing unusual ever happened until the day a peacock showed up. When the glamorous newcomer starts attracting attention from passersby, the three hardworking hens begin to wonder: how come we do all the hard work and he gets all the attention? This funny, warmhearted story opens rich conversations about fairness, teamwork, friendship, and the different roles we each play in a community.
What Students Will Learn
- Identifying key details and events in a realistic fiction story
- Understanding themes of fairness, cooperation, and recognizing others' contributions
- Vocabulary related to emotions, community, and working together
- Recognizing how friendships and team dynamics are strengthened when everyone's role is valued
Support Materials
Access the full suite of free activities, guides, and resources for Three Hens and a Peacock.
Three Hens and a Peacock is available to read on Skybrary, RIF's trusted kids reading app. Visit the Skybrary website or download the Skybrary app from the Apple App Store, and dive into this delightful story plus hundreds of additional books.
Literacy Central Teaching Resources
RIF’s Literacy Central is a thoughtfully curated online platform offering free reading resources for educators, families, and students. With lessons, activities, and book-based tools in one convenient place, it makes it easy to foster engaging, meaningful literacy experiences throughout the month.
Support literacy instruction through June with classroom-ready materials:
Identifying key ideas and details in texts that explore friendship, empathy, and belonging
Vocabulary-building activities and engaging reading passages
Writing prompts that encourage reflection on personal relationships and acts of kindness
Friendship-focused activities that spark connection and community-building
Printable worksheets and extension materials
Teaching Resource Feature: RIF Webinar Archive
RIF offers engaging webinars all year to support educators and families. These webinars share fresh ideas and practical ways to help young readers thrive. These sessions feature RIF experts and guest speakers. Guest speakers include authors, researchers, and academic leaders. They share insights on building reading engagement and improving literacy instruction. June is a great time to explore the RIF Webinar Archive. You can watch all past sessions anytime.
Use the Webinar Archive to support:
Professional learning at your own pace over the summer months
Connecting with best practices in literacy instruction and reading engagement
Discovering new strategies for building independent reading habits
Accessing insights from literacy experts, authors, and academic leaders
Planning ahead for the coming school year with fresh, research-backed ideas
Free Printable Teaching Resources
This month, check out RIF's Summer Reading Camp program and printable materials. Summer Reading Camp includes a printable summer reading log. It also has book recommendations for each age group. You can earn badges by doing activities. It includes resources that are fun for the whole family. All of them are free and ready to use. Download and share these materials to help students build reading routines and beat the summer slide.
RIF's Daily Book Bites calendar highlights national holidays and important dates. Click any entry to access aligned stories with linked printable resources, ensuring an activity for each day of the month.
Enhance Classroom Reading with Read-Aloud Videos
Listening to books read aloud helps build vocabulary, enhance comprehension, and nurture a love of reading. RIF's library of read-aloud videos makes it easy for educators to bring engaging stories into the classroom, introduce authors, and connect reading to any lesson or monthly theme.
Reading Inspires! Podcast: Teaching Resource for Educators and Families
RIF is proud to highlight Reading Inspires!, Reading Is Fundamental's podcast. Each episode brings together voices from the literacy community, including authors, educators, advocates, and thought leaders. They share ideas on engaging young readers and expanding access to books. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts.
Tips for Social & Classroom Engagement
Classroom Ideas
Launch a Friendship Book Club where small groups read a friendship-themed story together and discuss what makes the relationships in the book special and what they can apply to their own friendships.
Create a "Kindness in Action" reading journal where students track acts of kindness they read about in books and connect them to moments of kindness they've shown or experienced in real life.
Use graphic organizers to map out the qualities of different types of friendships in books, comparing how characters support each other through challenges and celebrate each other's strengths.
Host a "Letters to a Friend" writing activity inspired by friendship books, where students write a heartfelt letter to a real or imagined friend, drawing on themes and moments from the stories they've read.
Invite students to create a Friendship Scrapbook Page (available in the Friendship Collection) capturing a meaningful relationship with a classmate, family member, or even a beloved book character.