10 Jun Making Summer Reading Fun!

Our packing ‘n going came to a screeching halt last year. While we admit we missed the new adventures around every corner, we were secretly glad to be able to stay home and read a little more. But, now that the world is slowly beginning to return to normal, we can start our (real-life) traveling adventures once again.

Whether your kids have been online for these last few months of schooling or in-person, it’s always important to make sure your child is keeping up with the school’s curriculum. If you’re lucky, your kids stayed with the program and will be fine when the new school year starts. But if you’re typical, well, let’s face it, there may be some catching up to do. So how do you make sure your kids will be ready for school in the fall? The best way is to just keep them reading. Fortunately, we have some great suggestions for summer reading programs that will give them just a bit more of an incentive:

Pack-n-Go Girls

As always, you can take your kids on a reading adventure around the world with Pack-n-Go Girls. No masks or social distancing required–and they’re MUCH cheaper than a plane ticket!

Join us for five weeks of adventure and global discovery with our Pack-n-Go Girls Summer Reading Adventure. Sign up and you’ll receive your printable Passport to Adventure. Then, each week for five weeks we’ll send you an email with a list of book suggestions related to a Pack-n-Go Girls country: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Mexico, and Thailand. You’ll also get links to more information about the country, as well as a fun learning activity, recipe, craft, or coloring page. At the end of the week, we’ll send you the passport stamp of the featured country to put into your passport. Collect all five passport stamps and download our printable coloring and activity book for free! It’s an easy way to travel during a time when people prefer to stay home (and safe), then hop on an airplane.

If you haven’t discovered the audiobooks, you’re going to love how Kae Denino brings the characters alive. Mystery of the Ballerina Ghost, Mystery of the Secret Room, Mystery at the Christmas Market, Mystery of the Troubled Toucan, Mystery of the Min Min Lights, and Mystery of the Thief in the Night are all available and are Whispersynced to the ebook version. It’s a great way for reluctant readers to build their skills without the stress of decoding every word.

Public Library: We love the public library! They all have a summer reading program to get kids in the library and get them reading. If you’re new to your area, here’s a great site to find the closest library to you. As states open back up, libraries are too!

Don’t forget to look for Pack-n-Go Girls books, ebooks, and audiobooks at your library. If your library hasn’t discovered Pack-n-Go yet, they’ll appreciate the nudge from you to add the series to their collection. (So will we!)

Reading Rewards:

Create your own reading program with your own incentives at Reading Rewards.  Kids can log the books they’re reading, take quizzes, and even write reviews. It’s like Goodreads for kids, but with lots of added support for teachers and parents.

Pizza Hut Book It!

Track and reward the reading your kids do for June, July, and August in Pizza Hut’s Book It! digital dashboard. When they meet their monthly reading goal, they’ll receive a free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut also is sharing fun activities and book recommendations each week to keep the fun going throughout the summer.

Barnes & Noble:

With Barnes & Noble’s summer reading program, kids need to read at least eight books and record them in a reading journal along with their favorite part of each book. Their reward is a free book from a predetermined list at a Barnes & Noble store. Now, I don’t know about you, but for us: that’s a deal!

Scholastic Reading Program:

The Scholastic Reading Program has been revamped for 2021. Kids will now go to scholastic.com/homebase to create their account. Instead of logging reading minutes, kids will now be encouraged to track their Reading Streaks. A Reading Streak is the number of days in a row that a student checks in. If they skip a day, it starts over. The really cool thing? For every two days in a row kids track their reading streaks, Scholastic will donate six books to kids in areas with limited or no access to books. Nice!

Books-a-Million Summer Reading Adventure

Who doesn’t love Captain Underpants and Dog Man? This summer, Books-A-Million teams up with author Dav Pilkey for a summer reading adventure. Kids can choose four books from the Summer Reading Adventure section either in the store or online. Then they write about the books in the Summer Reading Adventure Log Book. By showing their completed log to a Books-A-Million employee, they receive a free Dog Man baseball cap.

Chuck E. Cheese:

Reading earns kids free tokens at Chuck E. Cheese every time they read. Just track progress on printable incentive sheets, and once completed and brought to Chuck E. Cheese, your kid will receive 1o tokens as a reward.

Half Price Books:

Half Price Books reading program asks kids to read fifteen minutes a day and keep a reading log. After reading 300 minutes, kids can take their log into a Half Price store and get $5.00 in credit.

Amazon:

If you have a Kindle, Amazon always has a long list of free books. You don’t need to keep a list or write a report. You only need to hit the download button. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

Whatever you do, we hope you–and your kids–have a fun summer of turning pages and discovering new worlds.