Summer’s coming–let’s set some goals! (Tip #1)

So, its that time of year! School is about to be out (if it isn’t already) and summer is upon is. That means time for BBQs, vacations, sleeping in, and if we’re not careful, the Summer Slide.

Summer Slide is that little thing that happens if your child doesn’t do any learning over the summer. I know, I know, no learning, how does that even happen? One would imagine that it would be difficult to do, but trust me, its possible.  At any rate, summer is definitely time to make reading fun, and one of the ways to do this is to set some goals!

If your children are even slightly competitive, like my children are, then setting a goal with them may be a shortcut way to get them motivated to read during the summer.  As I’ve mentioned before, my daughter and I are reading the Whatever After series, a hilarious series of fractured fairy tales. We just started reading book 5, and there’s 10 in the series. Now we do really enjoy the books, but we’ve been pretty lax in reading them back to back, as I mentioned before. So, as we were enjoying the end of book 4, I said to her,

“Hey, how about we try to finish the series this summer?”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea!” she replied. And then she began plotting how we would get them all in before summer was over.  Now, do I really want to finish this series? Definitely. Do I think we can actually read all 5 books before school starts in August? Ehhh.  But the point is, it motivated my daughter to keep books on the brain over this long summer. It helps that she’s like an elephant and doesn’t forget anything, so I’m sure if I start to slack at all, she’ll remember our plan and get us back on track.

I haven’t come up with a goal with my son yet, and I need to get on it because we are still developing his love of books and reading, so he has a greater chance of getting on the dreaded slide.  I’m thinking that since he’s really into these leveled National Geographic Kids books, we might set a goal of him being able to read some Level 2 books himself by the end of the summer. The books have wonderful photos and illustrations, so he spends a lot of time analyzing and admiring those, which is fine, that’s what they’re there for, but I would like him to read a tad bit more.

The #RaisingReaders suggestion here is this: try to set some sort of reading goal with your children this summer. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a specific number of minutes or number of books. It could be a goal to try something new, like starting chapter books, or starting a new series. Your goal could even be a parent/child goal, like increasing the amount of time you read together.  Whatever it may be, the intent is to make sure that the Summer Slide is one that your child does not go down.

I’ve got more ideas and suggestions for how to keep #RaisingReaders over the summer, so remember to tune back in or follow this blog to get regular updates.