One of the best ways to keep your kid’s brain from rotting over summer vacation is to set up a summer reading program of some sort. The great thing about summer is that no one is telling your child what to read. The choice is all theirs. At least, it should be. As long as they are reading something, it counts!
There are tons of summer reading programs out there for kids. My favorite is the Scholastic Summer Challenge. Not only can kids log their minutes and earn points towards digital prizes for themselves, but the whole community of readers is working together to break reading world records!
Looking for more summer reading programs already in play? Check out Penny Pinchin’ Mom’s post on Free Summer Reading Programs in 2013. She already did a great job of breaking them down. I’m taking a different angle this year. In addition to signing up for a few of the existing summer reading programs, I plan to create my own for my son. How? So glad you asked!
Tips for Creating Your Own Summer Reading Program for Kids
- Come up with a fun name. Your summer reading program needs a name, right? Well, maybe it doesn’t need one, but it does add an element of fun to it. Ask your child for suggestions. I may go with “The Great Summer Readathon Challenge” or something like that. I’m horrible at coming up with names, so I’m totally open to yours!
- Set the ground rules. Discuss with your child what the ground rules will be. What counts towards the goal? Do comic books count? Does it count if you read the book to your child? Take your child’s age into consideration when making the rules. Don’t expect a 6-year-old to read War and Peace, for example! Personally, I feel if it has words, it counts as reading.
- Decide how to log your child’s reading. This will have a lot to do with what you consider as qualified reading. If you’re counting any reading, such as magazines, newspapers, and even online articles, log by the minute. If you’re going with just books, log by the book. Whichever you choose, you can find some great printable logs at k12 Reader.
- Devise a reward system. Decide how you will reward your child. One idea is to put a marble in a jar for every book (or set amount of minutes) read. When the jar is filled (make it a reasonably sized jar, like a small pickle jar), your child earns a special reward. You can also give out book coupons when a goal is met, such as these (I made them myself. They’re nothing fancy, but feel free to use them if you like them):
- Â Get reading! Once you’ve devised your plan, it’s time to get reading! Give your child plenty of book choices and schedule regular trips to the library. With your summer reading program, your child won’t be as likely to suffer the dreaded summer brain rot!
Do you have any great tips for a summer reading program for your kids? I’d love to hear them!
Great idea! We join our library’s program, but I don’t think it runs all Summer. This would be good to keep it going.
With younger kids our Library said it was fine for the older sibling to read to the younger and then it counted for BOTH of them! Great motivation for The Boy to read to his sister, and they had marks for each 15 minutes since book sizes vary so much per child.
That is such a great idea to have older children read to the younger ones! Not only are they both learning, but it really gives them a great chance to bond!
And it’s a break from fighting lol
Wonderful post! My kids participate in our local library’s summer reading program. It is a lot of fun, and they get awesome rewards for reading!
I do the library program too. They give you points for every book, which gets you entered to win a nice little prize at the end of the summer. I won two years in a row!
Fortunately my daughter loves to read. Actually everyone in the house does, so we don’t really “need” a reward system to ensure that we read. However, we do it anyway just because we like to. 🙂 We visit bookstores often and whoever has completed the books they got last time gets to pick out more. Then we go to Starbucks and hang out and read and enjoy a nice drink. 🙂
Same here. My son loves to read almost as much as I do. For me, it’s about the checklists. I love making lists and it’s fun to earn points too.
Great idea, my daughter loves to read and the library program here isn’t great. If you read for 5 hours you get a pencil and a coupon for a small ice cream cone. It makes it hard to motivate her to follow their program even though she loves to read.
Wow, that’s not much of a prize. Our library doesn’t give out prizes along the way, but you earn the chance to win a cool bigger prize with every so many pages that you read.
I so need to do this! My kids definitely need to read more in the summer.
What a great idea. We’re just learning our letters, and will participate in a program like this once we’re reading!
What a fun idea. I think my older two would love this!
This is great! We’re so busy during the summer that I have a hard time making it to the library on a regular basis for their reading programs. This would be a great alternative!
Such a clever idea! And since I have some seriously over due books it is probably best we do our own 😉
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What a wonderful way to start the summer for kids. My children love to read. Thanks for sharing.
The suggestion above about logging one’s reading time would be good compliment to and ‘at home’ learn to read program. Doing it digitally might be even more fun an entertaining for the child.
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