Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion summer reading clubs

We have a kind of combination thing here -- the library has its own, but it also accepts the school's sheet. The school's sheet wants 20 minutes a day, five days a week, and each month's reading log gets an entry into a drawing for prizes. The library asks you to sign up for your own goal, and then has prizes along the way and drawings at the end for bigger prizes.

I'm totally with ultra and DeeDee here -- I find it impossible to get myself to bother with logging things, and eventually at the end of summer we fudge the whole thing. Assuming they have actually been reading. I allowed DS10 one log's worth last summer because he read some, but not a lot, but DD7 got all of them because she reads all the time. I just can't manage to fill things out and keep track as they go, when I'm at work all day. This year I told them it's their own responsibility to fill things out, and you can guess how well that's working out.

You would think that being able to turn in each two weeks' log for free ice cream at the local store would be enough to get them to do it, but no.

I sent a note to the school librarian on the last day of the reading program at school this year that said, "DD9 has read for at least 900 minutes since {start date}," and that was good enough for her to get her reward.

This is basically what we are doing. DD seems to crave the bubble sheet, though. She uses it as a bookmark along with a crayon. Now that I think about it, it is a very four-year-old thing to do.

If she wasn't keeping track herself, I probably would not bother. I'll probably never get around to doing the Barnes&noble one, because that requires me to write the titles and recommendations down.

Yes!!

DD loves Amy Tan-- are you enjoying it?

As for tracking reading-- I made up a notebook that I kept with a box when DD was younger-- she simply put in what she had finished reading. A couple times a week (er-- when the box got full, basically), I'd record the ISBN, title, pages, estimated reading level, and genre of the book.

We never tracked TIME because of how fast she reads, and frankly, the volume. She topped many THOUSANDS of pages each month for the years that I kept track of it. I stopped doing it by the time she was seven, but I still have the records.

She's read all but a handful of the Newbery books (honorees as well as winners) and those mostly because they are out of print. That was a goal one year.

I had to laugh about the plastic cockroach. Oh my gosh, my DD would come home with some of the weirdest things from the library's program. LOL.

We do a couple local library summer reading programs. Both our girls still get excited about drawing from the prizes and I try to sway them from the "junk" but not always successfully. The big prize, for anyone that reaches the goal, is either a free entry to the local water park or free food certificates, so it is worth it to us. We also do the state summer reading challenge that the governor puts on.

Last year we did the Barnes & Noble program and received free books. One was Apple Fractions and I can't remember the others.

We have also looked into (at one time or another) the Books-A-Million, Scholastic, Half Price Books, Book-It, Pottery Barn, Sylvan, American Girl, and Amazon reading programs. We haven't participated in any of these yet.

I just figure if they are going to be reading anyway, I may as well do the paperwork and turn it in so they can be rewarded for it.

Oh and don't forget Chuck E. Cheese too - for free tokens.

Nothing formal here. Both DH and I read aloud to DS11 (I'm so glad he still wants us to) and DS and I are matching each other book for book in a friendly competition. He gets to choose which books to read and while they aren't all difficult, they're no longer the junk-food books either. Now and then I'll ask him a question about character, author choices, setting etc. just to get him thinking about his own writing.

Okay, I looked it up and I don't see clock times anymore. Maybe I am making that up. You are supposed to put the date, though. So I need to track reading time each day (yes, they could do it...but they won't, and that would be a high bar for DS5, I'd say).

Thanks HK

Yes, I have read it before but I am enjoying the reread. We made a coconut stir fry last night to go with the book. It has some difficult things to discuss, but she is old enough to know about concubines and other difficult things for women. We are mostly reading it due to the mother/daughter relationships.

Ah yes, the concubine discussion with a younger child. A few years ago my son, who I think was about 9 at the time, was at the shore with my in-laws reading a book he had borrowed from the children's / middle grade section of our library. DS asked my in-laws what a concubine was -- and totally caught them off guard! Luckily FIL quickly said "female slave" and they all left it at that (other than the obligatory question to me -- "what are you letting him read?").

My kids liked the library program when they were younger -- they're suckers for those plastic cockroaches! But we don't bother anymore -- the two older ones read for pleasure while the younger one would rather sit with his sudoku and puzzles.

DD has not slowed down much. She is still reading approximately 2-3 hours a day depending on the day. After finishing our library's reading club (4x 12 hours), we did travel over to a nearby library to also finish their bubble sheet (which was actually circles divided into pie pieces but also equaling 12 hours of reading in the end.) She has also gone through three specially made reading clubs. I make them a little harder. They were each 20 hours long. The one she is on now is 75 hours long. She has also just read on her own while in between bubble sheets.

I have not yet completed any other kind of reading club for her. I did find a really nice reading list for K-3rd graders put out by the NEH. I plan on printing out this list and having her complete it (by filling in bubbles!) DD has already read half of them, but these are all great books, and she could stand to read them again and again. There is a 4th-6th grade list I'd like to work through as well. She just really seems to like the idea of being made to read right now. I'd definitely like to see her weened off these bubble sheets. I'm hoping by summer's end she will lose interests in them but keep on reading.

Also, Pottery Barn kids has a very simple reading club, and I think the prize is a free book. And, MENSA has a summer reading list that pulls from the NEH recommendations.

Here is the list from NEH:

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: A West African Tale
Aesop’s Fables
Miss Nelson Is Missing!
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Ivy + Bean
A Visitor for Bear
Madeline
Freckle Juice
Stone Soup
The Story of Babar, The Little Elephant
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
The Stories Julian Tells
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Diary of a Worm
Strega Nona
Abuela
Petunia
The Hundred Dresses
Corduroy
Millions of Cats
My Father’s Dragon
My Family / En Mi Familia
The Reluctant Dragon
A Pocketful of Poems
Iris and Walter
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
Just Grace
Chrysanthemum
Bedtime for Frances
Saint George and the Dragon
Danny and the Dinosaur
Amazing Grace
Houndsley and Catina
Harold and the Purple Crayon
The Snowy Day
Leo the Late Bloomer
The Carrot Seed
Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways
Catwings
Story of Ferdinand
A Book of Nonsense
The Year of the Dog
Frederick
Frog and Toad are Friends
Paul Revere’s Ride
Put Me in the Zoo
George and Martha
Anansi the Spider
Winnie-the-Pooh
Little Bear
The Paper Bag Princess
Wings
The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Amelia Bedelia
Clementine
The Little Engine that Could
Not a Box
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young
Curious George
Tar Beach
Henry and Mudge
Grandfather’s Journey
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Where the Wild Things Are
Green Eggs and Ham
Nate the Great
Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Caps for Sale
Mouse Gets Ready
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale
A Child’s Garden of Verses
Many Moons
A Tree is Nice
Crictor
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Charlotte’s Web
There is a Bird on Your Head!
The Napping House
Crow Boy
Mouse and Mole: A Winter Wonderland
Harry the Dirty Dog
William’s Doll