Does anyone have any good ideas to get your kids excited about summer reading?
I am desperate for some ideas to make reading fun this summer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated:)
Coleman and his buddy Elijah spent all their money on those ridiculous glasses on their last fieldtrip of the year. They thought they were super cool--and haven't worn them since!
Coleman and his buddy Elijah spent all their money on those ridiculous glasses on their last fieldtrip of the year. They thought they were super cool--and haven't worn them since!
At least we have this cute picture to show for the purchase! Silly boys:)
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7 comments:
I've heard that if they find something they are interested in, then they will enjoy reading. I've been reading the Magic Treehouse books to my 5 and 7 year old. Maybe your older boys could read to your younger ones?
You boys are competitive so maybe create a reading scoreboard/poster. They are their own team. Determine a way to keep score (hours read would balance out speeds, abilities, etc). Extra points earned by reading to the younger ones. You can have medals or trophies created for them at a local place for minimal $$. Think of categories (Most Read, Most Improved, Most Extra Points, etc) so that each gets a reward at the end as a surprise. Or something else - the winner gets to pick a place to visit as a family at the end of summer. Anywho...just an idea or two. I don't have kids so this may be completely unrealistic!
My mother created a large poster for my brother and I. We got a special marker just for our poster. Every time we read, we colored in a block that represented how many pages. Each time we hit a certain goal, we got something, a small candy, an ice cream, something little, but still enjoyable. When we met our BIG goal, we got a big thing. Sadly, I don't remember what our big thing was, but knowing my mom, it was a trip to the zoo or something like that, we loved it, and got us both to read a lot. Partly because we wanted to fill our poster before the other one!
Hi, I read your recipe blog and sometimes this one, love your ideas! I saw your question and being a book lover myself, I thought I'd reply. My older kids like to read anyway, but I was inspired by a book I read, called The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma, to read to my kids more often. We started a "summer reading streak" with the goal to read together every night for the 85 days of their summer break. My 5 kids range in age from 1 to 11, so I'm trying to vary the reading level of the books between 1st-6th grade levels to keep everybody's interest. After we finish a book we have some sort of celebration with treats from the book. Anyway, that might be a way to get yours interested in books even if they don't love to read on their own. Also, there are tons of great book lists online that you can search for books specific to different ages. And I second the idea of finding books about things they are interested in- that made all the difference with my son when he was around 2nd grade- he loved spiders, sharks, gross-out kinda stuff, all non-fiction- he had no interest in the typical "storybooks". Now he loves to read and has expanded to lots of kinds of books, but it took awhile. Good luck!
Last year I bought a big roll of carnival tickets at Wal-Mart for about $7. I gave out a certain number of tickets for books read. For example Harry Potter was a 12 ticket book. Then my boys were able to turn them in for something they really wanted- which happened to be a the Lego Wii games. I think I made it so that each ticket was worth 50-cents on the dollar. So if a game is $20, they had to earn 40 tickets. They like reading enough without the ticket incentive, so I use the tickets for other stuff they need motivation on- chores, multiplication tables, etc.
My guys also like Mom or Dad to read to them. We read The Hobbit while driving long distances in the car. Good Luck!
Hey Melanie,
check out this blog: http://rovinroberts.blogspot.com/ for summer fun reading ideas.
Will be missing you and the boys at Magrath Days!
Mindy
I have my 9 yo niece a couple days a week all summer and try hard to encourage her to read a lot. I recently discovered Barnes & Noble does a program if kids read 8 books they get a free book, you can go their site & print a list to keep track of the books then take it to the store to pick out their free book. I told my niece about it and told her I would take her to get the book at the end of summer if she could do it. She seemed excited, so I upped the ante for her and said if she can read 16 I will buy her an extra book--and she's doing really well only 2 wks into her summer!
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