Easy Ideas to Promote Summer Reading

We all know about the summer slide! What we need are easy ideas to promote summer reading with our students. We’ve got several ideas for you that are fun and there is even a freebie!

Some students will just naturally read during the summer, but others will need a little encouragement to get them going. As teachers, and parents, we know it will have to be easy and fun if it is going to happen.

Update: Epic is offering parents 30 days free!!

One of the easiest ways is Epic! I love Epic and have recommended it’s use over the summer to parents who are interested in keeping their child reading. Parents can sign up for 3 months for $3! There are some parents who won’t do this, but there are a lot who will. Epic makes it easy on both the parent and the student to read over the 3 months of summer with this great deal! Read all about the summer reading deal with Epic here.

Another way to encourage reading during the summer is with Scholastic’s Read-A-Palooza! It is a summer reading program where students log their reading minutes. Scholastic Summer Reading Program works to motivate students to read all summer long through weekly challenges, goals for schools, and activities and resources for parents. You can read about it here.

Another easy way you can encourage summer reading with your students is with this FREE Summer Reading Challenge! It is super easy. Basically print, explain and send home! Because teacher do NOT have extra time at the end of the year. Am I right?

Print the Summer Reading Challenge and the Summer Shelfie on to either colored paper or regular paper. Using colored paper will probably make it more likely to be seen and used though! Explain the pages to your students. You can create a short letter to send home if you are going to be offering prizes though.

Explain to students that they should choose a square, complete that reading challenge, and color in that block. They should try to color in their blocks before school begins at the end of summer. There are a lot of different ways listed for them to read! Gives them new ideas and something to look forward to and to plan for their reading days.

Each time the student reads a book, they can color in a book on the Summer Shelfie or write in the title of the book to fill their shelves. It is up to you to decide if you want to give out prizes or to encourage parents to handle that. Of course, you can just promote summer reading just for the sake of reading too!!

You can grab this Fun Summer Reading Challenge by signing up for our newsletters which gains you access to our FREE Resource Library. Sign up HERE!

You can find other End of the Year resources HERE to help you get through the end of the school year!