Keep ’em Reading This Summer With These Programs—Plus You Could Win Three Books

How will you keep your students reading as they head off for summer break? Introduce them to some fun prize-packed programs! There are plenty to choose from, plus some of them come with some sweet perks for you.

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Submit a comment to the blog by 11:59 pm EDT Sunday, June 21, 2015, to tell me which of the programs below you may recommend to your students. One lucky teacher will win three books to kick off summer. The pup in Fun in the Sun is ready for a day at the beach, but he may have forgotten something very important. Wind is the star at the beach, on the water, and in the cities in When the Wind Blows. Then share how a visit to the library saved the characters–and inspired them to read!— in The Fox in the Library. (Update: congratulations to Elizabeth, who is the winner of our prize.)

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Now let’s get your students reading. Here’s an at-a glance list of a few reading programs that you may find in your hometown. Want to know more? Click on the red links!

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With Imagination’s Destination, kids read any eight books, record the titles on a reading journal, and turn in the journal at a Barnes & Noble store to choose a free book. What’s in it for you? Download a free teacher’s kit filled with activities and tips!

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Kids can join the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge to be part of setting a new reading world record. Through September 4, 2015, have your school’s students log the minutes they read. The elementary and middle schools logging the most minutes will win visits from authors. Here’s something you’ll like: you can track your students’ progress, get free resources, and enter for a chance to win 50 books!

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The folks at Pizza Hut want to ignite kids’ passion for reading, so they’ve teamed up with the Wimpy Kid gang for the BOOK IT! Summer Reading Challenge for grades K-6. The program runs from June 22 to August 15 and lets kids chat with the Wimpy Kid gang, share daily reading minutes, and download activities. Kids who read five books have a chance to win prizes.

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Check out your local library for its summer reading programs. Click here for a message from the 2015 National Summer Reading Champion author Kate DiCamillo. From keeping a librarian company to meeting a superhero, she has a list of top ten reasons to participate in your local library’s program. For you: the list is available to download as a flyer to share with your students.

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Book Adventure is a fun, free way to motivate grades K–8 kids to search for books, read them, take a quiz on what they’ve read, and earn prizes. It includes a list of recommended summer reading books and, for you, a teacher’s lounge with free tools and tips to help students love reading.

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With Summer Quest, kids are encouraged to take a reading adventure. By reading four books on the Books-A-Million list, your students can get a Camp Half-Blood tote bag to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians book series.
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That should get you started. Don’t forget to tell which of these are your favorites for a chance to win the books!

Karen

PS: Looking for math practice? HoodaMath.com is a free online math site with more than 700 games. There’s an app for it too, and the app is free all summer!


24 thoughts on “Keep ’em Reading This Summer With These Programs—Plus You Could Win Three Books

  1. Absolutely love these resources. I always recommend the library here for the summer reading program. Now thanks to you I have more resources to recommend Thank you

  2. What a fun list of resources! Scholastic and Pizza Hut look like wonderful incentives, and I will be checking out the others too.

  3. I encourage my students to join any and all summer reading programs. We have one at my school, our two area libraries, and Barnes and Noble.
    I also give each student a fun book to read over the summer. I include an incentive to have lunch with me in the fall if they complete the 2 questions and crossword puzzle that go with the book. I always have about 10 students complete my incentive.
    This year my book is The Summer of Riley (I teach grade 4).

  4. I am looking forward to doing the Summer Reading Challenge at Scholastic and The Fox in the Library looks cute.

  5. My favorite would be Imagination’s Destination. I still think its important for kids to read hard copy books and there’s nothing like going to the book store and seeing all those books waiting for you to buy them. (can you tell I like bookstores?)

  6. I recommend the local library’s summer reading program to my students as many of them do not leave their neighborhood throughout the year, including the summer, and bookstores are not really found in the area. The library is less than a mile away for most of them. If they can get their parents to take them to the library during the summer, they are more likely to go during the school year.

  7. I love the Imagination’s Destination reading challenge. What a great way for a child to expand their home library.

  8. I have used the Barnes and Noble Summer Program for years along with our public Library, the Boston Red Sox, the local Cinema Bookwork Wednesdays, We Give Books. Looking forward and exploring the others ones you recommend.

    Thanks for the additional programs.

  9. Love all the resources. We do the summer reading program. I always recommend your resources to my parents.

  10. I am going to recommend both the Barns n Nobel and the Book It summer reading programs to my students. I will send home the forms with their report cards so that the parents will see them.

  11. I would recommend Book Adventure. Today’s kids are very technology-oriented and to search for books online and then take a quiz would be very appealing to many of them!

  12. My students have enjoyed the Summer Reading Challenge from Scholastic in past years, but we might try to do the Book Adventure or Summer Quest programs this year, too. We’ve also signed up to do the program run by DOGO books — it’s a great way to get my kids writing and thinking critically.

  13. I do not have a favorite, since all reading incentives are my favorite! The Scholastic incentive is new to me, I am excited to share this with my students. Thank you so much for all of the resources you share.

  14. Happy almost summer everyone! I have checked out the Scolastic Summer Program and think that it sounds amazing, our local library system will be offering programming this summer which are equivalent to the Collaborative program so we will participate as often as possible with that program. I must say that I have heard of Pizza Hut doing some wonderful books and reading programs but I hadn’t heard about this particular BOOK IT! Programm….if a prize is pizza sign my family up. Happy summer everyone : ) xo Kh

  15. I recommend any program that gets kids reading not only in summer, but all throughout the year! Book It was my favorite as a kid (Who doesn’t love pizza?!), but I like Summer Reading Challenge and Book Adventure!

  16. We have used Book It! and want to try the Barnes and Noble program. Love it when kids want to read in the summer!

  17. I recommended Scholastic to my students before our summer started because I didn’t know about the others! I will have more to recommend for next year!

  18. I’m looking forward to using the Barnes and Noble program and Book Adventure. Thanks for the Hooda Math suggestion!

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