HIT: Summer reading - Long

[Sharon Blumenstein <sblumenstein@EMEK.ORG>]

Thank you to everyone who responded. Here's a summary of what I received
in hopes it will help others with the same need.

--> Could you use the free books you get from the
book fair as the prizes? That takes care of one problem.
-->Give each child or have each child purchase, if your community is
affluent, a set of 3x5 or 4x6 index cards, white and ruled, upon which
he/she writes the author and title and a brief answer to  a query like,
"I like this book because...", "You should read this book because...",
"Read this book because..."Each card must be legibly signed by student
and parent, then counted and turned in at the start of school.Each card
becomes an entry in drawings, per your graded levels, for books, book
store certificates, lunch with the principal, ...Conduct a big deal
drawing You get a summer reading program , feedback via the cards which
can become bulletin board fillers, and contest that is rewards READING
whether one or one hundred.
-->If you have internet access for students you might tie the reading to
a trip. For every page they earn a mile, or for every book they earn
#miles . . . and then when they return to school they can turn in their
mileage and use it to take a "virtual trip" to any where they can reach
from your location, using the internet.  You could call it a Reading
Passport. It's 25,000 miles around the world, you could make it so that
the goal would be to read around the world.
-->Each child read over the summer,  keeping a log of what each reads.
In the fall you can look over the lists and all can get "credit" for
doing some reading.  Then, you can put together lists over the next
school year and go from there. Or, using a reading list, kids could
check off what they've read, or had read to them.   One school has each
kid write a short essay at the beginning of the year on one book, really
as a trial writing sample.  The kids can read other stuff if they find
something interesting...the idea is just to keep them going;  poor and
non readers can listen to parents or tapes.
-->Call up your public library and see if they have chosen a theme for a
summer reading program for children.  Then ask them if you can copy
their theme and give out book lists to your children.  When kids come
back give prizes (paperbacks or candy) to students who have read say 10
books or less.
-->To cover the competition end of it, how about providing a list of
recommended titles for each category, and for those students who have
read a certain number, they get to vote for their favorite. Then you
could announce the winners and everyone who participated could partake
in a party/celebration.Our state does this throughout the school year
for grades 4-8 and kids get pretty excited about it.
-->At the public library, we had a sheet copied on both sides with space
for 50 titles on each side.  Each time the readers reported to the
library, these titles were initialled by staff or stamped with a cute
little rubber stamp to prevent cheating. The read-to-me group will need
the most spaces because they will FLY through books.  Somewhere I think
in a recent Mailbox magazine I saw a passport program to use as a book
log.  You could make it different countries or different genres or leave
it open.  Each time the reader completes the required number of books or
pages or minutes, they could fill in a page of the passport describing
"where" they visited (to serve as a book report or log.
-->The  Read, Write, Now program is a program of the U.S. Dept. of Educ.
and they are responsible for distributing materials.  AASL was an
endorser of the program.  For information about it contact USDOE
202-401-3630 (Susan Thompson-Hoffman). AASL has an initiative called
Count on Reading which links many other existing reading programs.  For
information concerning this initiative send an e-mail message with your
snail mail address to aasl@ala.org.

Good luck to all...

Sharon Blumenstein, Librarian, Emek Hebrew Academy, Sherman Oaks, CA
>sblumenstein@emek.org<