Starting today Greyson is participating in a summer reading challenge. He is not competing against any other children – he is just challenging himself, to see how many books he can read between now and August 28th. I have shared many times how important I believe it is to read to your kids. You can see some of the statistics here, and tips on how to read to a child who struggles with sitting still; here.
He is participating in it through Usborne. We absolutely LOVE their books, and my consultant is hosting the challenge. If you’ve never heard of Usborne, or have not checked out their books I highly recommend it! They are amazing. Anyway, between now and August 28th, he is challenging himself to read at least an additional 20 minutes every day. This is on top of the reading we do together (naps, bedtime, and randomly throughout the day)
How the Summer Reading Challenge Works:
- Our Usborne consultant is hosting the challenge. She created a Facebook page for all of the participants. She will be communicating / tracking / and supporting all of the kids.
- We have told family about the summer reading challenge – and many of them have pledged to support Greyson. Some have supported him by pledging set amounts of money – while others are paying a certain amount of money ($1 or $2) per every 20 minutes read!
- The money Greyson earns from the challenge will go (50%) to allowing him to buy new Usborne books! (YAY) while the other 50% will be donated to children in our local area who will benefit from some awesome new books.
- To keep the challenge fun our consultant will be giving prizes, and surprise to the kids throughout the challenge.
Why is Greyson participating?
- Greyson is so darn close to being able to read 100% by himself. He really wants to be able to do this! Everyone knows that the best way to encourage / help a child to become a reader is through reading. I really think that by increasing his amount of daily reading, he will be reading by September!
- Greyson LOVES books. The thought of earning money by reading to purchase new books (that he gets to pick out, himeself) gets him really excited. His family is more than happy to support him on his challenge – and to help him get new Usborne books on his shelves, and the shelves of other children.
- Its is fun – it is something new to do – it is educational – and he is looking forward to it, so why the heck not.
How I am planning to make this a success:
- I created a Facebook event page for the summer reading challenge. Everyone that has pledged to support him has been added. This way I can give frequent updates, and show all of his supporters his progress. It is the easiest way to keep everyone informed.
- The boys usually go down for a nap from 1 – 3 PM. For the next few weeks Greyson will get to stay up later (Until 1:30) and we will read together.
- We will also push his “bedtime” back by 15 minutes to allow for extra reading time (We will still read until the normal time each night)
- New and exciting books! We will be visiting the library more frequently, to check out new books! We are hoping to read through the Magic Tree House Series!
Keeping his supporters updated:
- As I mentioned before I created the Facebook page and added everyone who pledged to support him
- I also created this Summer Reading Challenge page, to keep track of how many books he / we read throughout the summer. and this Summer Reading Page Tracker, to keep track of how many pages we read!
- He will of course be sending out personalized thank you cards to all of his supporters at the end of the challenge!
I have been looking forward to it for the last few weeks, and am really looking forward to the extra time I will be spending with Greyson. More than that, I am loving watching him learn how to read! It is amazing milestone!
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