How do you get your kids to embrace summer reading?

The best way is for you to be involved in your child’s reading is by doing it as a family. It builds a bond between you and your child. The physical contact brings healing to your souls. It increases your child’s vocabulary and while you talk about the story, you can introduce new concepts and ideas into your child.

The I can Read Series is a wonderful way to do this. It has books geared to early readers with titles like Biscuit, to more advance readers with titles like, Frances Best Friends.

This summer as you are looking for something to do with your children, I want to challenge you to sit down with them and make a plan for their success.

What kind of goal would you like to accomplish this summer?

            Do you want to read a book 5 nights a week?

            Do you want to read one book every other day/night until your child can read that book all by him/herself?

            Do you want to read one or two books a week?

            Do you want to read before or after a meal?

 Make the goal something you both can live with but at the same time a little challenging. Then decide on the reward.

            Is it a date night with mom or dad?

            Is it a new toy?

            Is it a trip to grandma’s or grandpa’s?

            Is it given all at once or in increments?

 (If you make the reward along their interest you will be showing your support of them. Ex. A poster of their favorite baseball player, a baseball, a bat, a trip to a game.)

The length between the rewards depends on your child’s age. But one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is delayed satisfaction. Children who have mastered waiting for something are more successful in life than those who don’t. 

The next character trait you both get to work on is perseverance. It will be easy to give up or stop half way through the summer. Life happens something always come up that seems more important but is it really?

Now as with any goal, it is ok to look at it again and make adjustments. In two weeks, see if your goal to read is working if not make an adjustment and try again. That’s not failure you, are teaching your child, how to be flexible how and how to adjust to situations in life, yet still be able to accomplish their goals and ultimately their dreams. 

I will be posting blogs on several of the I Can Read books.  Best Friends for Frances, and Frog and Toad together are just two I have already picked out. These blogs will be a way for you to build up your child’s emotional intelligence as you read and discuss the books together. If there is a book you would like to see a blog on, leave me a comment telling me the title and author and I will see what we can do.

I was inspired to write this blog post because of a blogging program on Twitter Moms. But  I believe with all my heart that reading together with your child is one of the best things you can do for your relationship.