I love public libraries. We visit our favorite branch weekly, if not more often. We bring home stacks and stacks of books, and they are in use daily. We’re members of the Friends of the Library, and volunteer at sales. We go to plays, readings, and musical events at different branches. We are fans.
One program with which I have a love/hate relationship is Summer Reading. Why? Well, first off… the prizes are usually really lame. I still shudder at the memory of the year my kids turned in their completed reading logs and were given the chance to choose a brand new book of their choice off a cart. The selections all featured characters from movies and television. The next year, they “won” inflatable beach balls with the library’s logo on them. That wouldn’t have been so awful except for the fact that the plastic off-gassed such a terrible odor we never got to inflate them; I didn’t want those stinky things in the same room as my nose, let alone near my mouth long enough to blow them up!
Keeping kids reading in the summer is a noble, valiant, wonderful idea. It’s also a tough sell for many kids. Given the choice between reading for an hour or jumping ramps with a bike, most kids are going to pass on the book. No laminated bookmark or promise of a ticket to a puppet show is going to change that.
What does sell kids on reading during school breaks is great books. From there, it’s easy to devise your own incentive plan that capitalizes on your child’s interests and hits the right note for your family’s values. No program needed!
If you’re looking to simplify (especially if there’s travel in your summer itinerary), Sonlight’s pre-selected Summer Readers are absolutely the way to go. The books have already been screened, and you know that they were chosen with the idea of not just distracting your child, but engaging him. That’s a tall order for me in the summer months, when my brain is just wanting a break from the heavy lifting of the school year.
Once you have your reading list set, the rest is easy. I mean… all those books calling your name…
Next up: ask yourself whether your summer schedule lends itself to gauging success by tracking pages read, minutes read, or total books completed. The key is to set your child up for success, not failure. Being realistic about how much time you’ll actually be able to set aside to meet the goals you set will draw your child to the project rather than presenting a mountain that looms over the summer. My personal tip? Set the bar lower than you might expect your child to achieve. Some kids like to stretch to meet a challenge, and if that’s your child, great. But I like to save those “personal best” moments for times when fun isn’t the order of the day. Your mileage may vary, of course. (Googling Summer Reading Record Sheet brings up a ton of printables for home use!)
Once you’ve got the books and the goal, decide on the reward. Some ideas:
- movie tickets
- museum/zoo/aquarium trip
- hardbound copy of a classic from your own childhood
- an outing to a local tea room
- a stuffed animal representing the character of an especially beloved title
- a round of mini-golf
- a customized canvas library bag
- a themed dinner based on a book read
And there you have it! A hassle-free summer reading program designed specifically for your child, with the added bonus of not adding to the meaningless trinkets in your home. Let the summer reading begin!
Want to score your very own set of Sonlight Summer Readers? Enter before May 31 for your chance to win a package!
I don’t know how it was funded or if it was just that some people were better at raising funds than others, but we had WIDELY varying “prizes” in for the summer reading program at our county library when I was a child. One year, every ten books read got a ticket to a game of pro baseball (Oakland A’s): I got tickets for all of my family, and stayed home and read, because I had no interest in going. LOL Another year, one was supposed to read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and then answer a questionnaire. I didn’t re-read the books, just sat down and answered all of them right then, and got a lovely red bookmark.
The library in our little town had a whole week’s program (like VBS, without the B…) based on a theme (I remember dinosaurs one year, medieval times another year, etc.), which I thought was much more fun than the silly “read some books and get a prize” at the county library. My mother would only let us check out 20 books each (which meant taking 100 books home each week, not counting whatever she got for herself), which meant my main summer library activity was trying to manipulate my brothers to check out books I wanted that they didn’t. I didn’t usually win, but out of desperation, I usually read all of their books, as well.
I spent my own summers as a kid often in transit, so I missed out.