The days of summer are fast approaching. I've been putting together the finishing touches on the summer reading program, so it's feeling like it's right around the corner. We've got a bunch of stuff planned and much of it is centered around this theme:
The summer Olympics are this year, hence the theme.
Reading is super important during the summer. Everyone knows that, right? Kids apparently don't even need to read a ton, they say six books over the course of three months. Which kind of boggles my mind. But, I'm a reader who lives with a trio of readers. If one of my kids were to only read six books in a summer, it would probably be books in the Harry Potter series. Six picture books for a kid reading at an 8th grade level probably isn't what they're thinking.
Of course, things have changed as my girls have gotten older. It's become much more difficult to control the amount of screen time. Every summer is another adventure in parenting kids who enjoy their time in front of a screen. Last year I had read that turning on the closed captioning on the TV is better than nothing. Makes sense to me! When there are words running across the page, eventually you'll pick some of them up. Did I do that? Nope, but my kids read. Mostly. I suppose if they were a lot younger, I would. But they're all pretty advanced readers for their ages, so teaching them isn't really a thing for me. (Not that it ever was.)
Reading is super important during the summer. Everyone knows that, right? Kids apparently don't even need to read a ton, they say six books over the course of three months. Which kind of boggles my mind. But, I'm a reader who lives with a trio of readers. If one of my kids were to only read six books in a summer, it would probably be books in the Harry Potter series. Six picture books for a kid reading at an 8th grade level probably isn't what they're thinking.
Of course, things have changed as my girls have gotten older. It's become much more difficult to control the amount of screen time. Every summer is another adventure in parenting kids who enjoy their time in front of a screen. Last year I had read that turning on the closed captioning on the TV is better than nothing. Makes sense to me! When there are words running across the page, eventually you'll pick some of them up. Did I do that? Nope, but my kids read. Mostly. I suppose if they were a lot younger, I would. But they're all pretty advanced readers for their ages, so teaching them isn't really a thing for me. (Not that it ever was.)
Back to summer reading. . . it may seem like an Olympic event to get our kids off the screens and onto a page. How about we win bronze if we can get them to read six books this summer, silver if they read seven, gold if they read eight. You don't want to make reading out like it's something they have to do as a punishment. You don't want to force them. You also can't tell them that any book is bad. (You'd hate for them to hate reading because the books they like are "bad" which means they don't like reading.) Does it count to let them read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the fourth time? I'm not sure. Suddenly this Olympic challenge seems a little more difficult!
We'll wrap up our summer reading program with an Olympic event in August. I'm going to see about getting some medals for those adults who are able to get kids reading!
It's only a couple more weeks until school is out. I hope you're ready for this summer's Olympic library challenge.
Get ready to READ FOR THE WIN!
