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Health & Fitness

Kids & Summer Reading

An overview of local summer reading programs and ways to encourage kids to keep reading.

Summer officially begins at our house this Friday.  When I was a kid, summer vacation meant finding ways to entertain myself for three long months before school began again.  I spent a lot of time outdoors – on my bike, in the garden, climbing trees, exploring – but when the temperatures soared, I brought home stacks of books from the library and headed downstairs to the cool basement to lose myself in other (less humid) worlds.

Summers are different for my kids.  Because I work full-time, they aren’t able to spend lazy summer days at home.  And let’s face it, their options for entertainment are more technology-based than I had.  One thing our summers have in common, though – stacks of book brought home from the library.

We are fortunate to have a terrific library system in our area.  The St. Michael-Albertville-Hanover Library, part of the Great River Regional Library system, offers a Summer Reading Program each year – with a separate program for teen readers – and my kids wanted to sign up this year on the very first day.  I’m happy to report that at five p.m. on Monday, June 4th when we arrived, a great number of kids had already signed up. 

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Younger children, ages 0 to 3, can participate in Read to Me, which helps parents encourage early reading.  This year’s theme for ages 3 to 12 is Dream Big, Read!  Kids keep track of time spent reading and can enter for prize drawings.  The Teen Summer Reading Program, Own the Night, is for kids in grades 6 through 12.  The program runs June 4th through August 4th.

Here’s what’s cool about the Library’s Summer Reading Program – it tracks the number of minutes spent reading, not the number of books read.  So that means that ALL reading counts – whether it’s books, magazines, the Sunday Comics, listening to audio books – whatever.  Kids fill in the minutes on little clocks and earn prizes along the way.

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There are also a number of storytimes and fun events scheduled, including a visit from Minnesota author David LaRochelle on Friday, June 8th at 3 pm.  Mr. LaRochelle, who writes children’s and young adult books, including the award-winning The Best Pet of All, spent a week working with students at St. Michael Elementary in March and returns to the area to help kick off a summer of reading.  Register for this event here.

Other Summer Reading Programs include Barnes & Noble’s Imagination’s Destination, Half-Price Book’s Feed Your Brain, and Scholastic’s Summer Challenge. And don’t forget to check out what our local independent booksellers have in store for the summer.  Reading Frenzy, located in Zimmerman, hosts Summer Book Clubs for Early, Middle, and Older Readers this summer and has planned an entire week of book-related events and activities during their Book Festival June 19th through the 23rd.   Buffalo Books and Coffee hosts a year-round book club for Middle School student and the friendly staff there are always willing to offer book recommendations.

So – why should we encourage our kids to read over the summer?  It keeps them in the habit of tracking number of minutes spent each day reading, which they do during the school year as well. It helps improve their reading skills and avoid summer "learning loss." It can open them up to new books, new authors, new subject matter. 

Some tips to help you in this department: Make it easy for your kids to find something to read. If you don’t have overflowing bookshelves at your house like we do, don’t worry.  Select a day each week or every other week to be “Library Day.”  Go together as a family or take each child separately, alternating weeks, to give them your undivided attention while they choose books.  Read to your kids.  Let them pick the book – who cares if it’s the zillionth time you’ve read Pinkalicious or Green Eggs and Ham?  Repetition encourages learning.  And read yourself!  This sends the message that reading is important. 

I’m a writer, so it’s a function of my job to read as much as I can to learn about the craft and the market.  As a busy mom with a full-time job outside the home (in addition to writing), I know that parenthood and general life maintenance can get in the way of relaxing with a good book.  Summer is the perfect time to give yourself permission to do just that!  You've been meaning to read the Hunger Games trilogy - go for it!  Bring books to the beach, to the park, to the front porch, wherever you go to relax this summer.  Encourage your kids to do the same!

Stay tuned – in the coming weeks I’ll write about suggestions for reluctant readers, the 100 Picture Book Challenge, great summer reads, and more!

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