Asaiutui: How to Encourage Your Students to Read Over the Summer

How to Encourage Your Students to Read Over the Summer

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Encouraging your students to read this summer may not be an easy task to do, since there are plenty of other enjoyable summer activities. However, you and your students worked very hard all school year to increase reading achievement. So, rather than just pushing the books aside, the best way to make summer reading a successful reality is to plan for it!

So how are you going to encourage your students to read?

1. Set Reading Goals

Your students will become more prone to go beyond and above if they set reading goals this summer. There are various activities or programs that promote summer reading and provide incentives to both the students and your school.

Scholastic Summer Reading Program

(There are other online programs as well. Google will show you.)

2. Think Outside the Box

Reading is reading. Whether it is a sports blog online, comic book series, celebrity magazine, how to play video games, newspapers, circulars from stores, etc. Reading and learning don't always come from a traditional hard bound book.

3. Help Your Students Access Reading Materials

Provide your students with a tour (in reality or online) of your local library. Examine all of the free resources from books, newspapers, magazines, videos, activities and summer reading programs. All readers, including students with special needs, will enjoy the large selection of audio or audio visual books. Students are busy with summer activities, sports and vacations. This means a lot of time in a vehicle. Audio books will make the trip (no matter long or short) more fun for everyone in the vehicle! Download free books for Kindle. Did you know your students can read Kindle books for free from any computer or mobile device?! Click HERE. Just download their book reader software for free.

4. Create a Summer Reader Community

The best part of summer is spending time with friends! Help students connect summer reading with their friends! Talk with students about book studies and encourage them to play together AND do book talks together. This helps all students, even the more introverted students, stay social all summer long. Older students may create a reading calendar and organize their own book clubs. For the younger students, the teacher can send home contact information (with permission, of course) regarding students in their proximity to assemble smaller scale reading groups.

5. Get the Parents and Families Involved

Send home a suggested summer reading list to help guide the parents. Please make sure all of the books on the list are available for free at the local library. Students could generate their own summer reading lists by browsing their local libraries online. Show students how to examine the inside pages of books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or YouTube. The best way for families to encourage summer reading is to model reading. (However, a trip to the local ice cream shop can be a fun whole family reward!)

(Here is a Common Core reading list. Note: These may not all be available in the local library. Use this list as a guide. Please don't print it for parents.)

Please share your own suggestions on how to encourage summer reading in the comments below.

We have several book units in our store. If your students pick any of the books we have available, feel free to send the book activities home with your students.

To be used with any book: