Our local library usually does an amazing summer reading program, complete with special events, free books and lots of fun prizes for kids who participate (we won a free birthday party one year!).
Of course things are different this year, and a lot of the events are virtual. As my kid gets older, too, the prizes are not as appealing and she’s not sure she wants to participate this year, but it’s still great to have some way to encourage more reading in the summer.
Her school has done the Scholastic Summer Reading Program for many years but they’re not really doing it as a school this year. (It looks like you can sign up individually, though, and it is free to do so.)
I like the idea of designing your own summer reading program, with goals and rewards that work for your kid. That way you can choose how much reading time needs to happen per day or week, how you want to track it, what sorts of rewards might be involved, even a theme for the types of books you want to read.
Example: read 20 minutes a day, a book that was made into a movie, with the reward of watching the movie and a special snack when it’s done. Or books where the main character or author has the same first name as your child.
Check out this post from The Ardent Biblo for more tips on how to set up your own summer reading program. If you need some ideas for new books to add to your list, this guide from Growing Book by Book looks fun. And don’t miss my printable summer reading logs from Our Daily Craft.
[Photo: The Ardent Biblio.]
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