Make Summer Reading Fun

Hello, all!  It's Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars.  

My summer break started yesterday, and I am excited to spend some quality time with my children!  We spend a lot of time running around and a lot of time relaxing, but we never stop learning!  And reading is the number one priority in my own home.

It saddens me to hear of children who don't read at all.  Many families in the school where I work don't even own books or go to the wonderful library they have in their community.  How sad!  My goal is to motivate them to read, and I always use my son as an example.  Last summer he had his "aha" moment and realized that reading is fun.

My son struggled with finding something he WANTED to read.  I gave him lots of ideas, but he always shot him down.  At the beginning of last school year, we started reading the Harry Potter series to him, and he was hooked.  Now he has read the entire series on his own!
 
One of his favorite toys in Legos, and he has quite the collection!  It all started with my husband's old sets that were handed down to him, and it just goes on from there!  Sometimes I think Legos are taking over my house.  So, this was the book he wanted me to get for him from the Book Fair to read:  LEGO Harry Potter: Building the Magical World.

And, he didn't put it down ~ for days!  Then, he started asking for the sets, which are retired.  We said that he had plenty of pieces to try and make some of the things in the book.  After some complaining, we lost him for a couple of hours.  He tried to build Hogwarts but couldn't figure out the stairs.  So, he settled on the Quidditch field.  Here is the picture in the book and then his creation.

We did have to go on ebay to purchase some of the minifigures and brooms, but some of them he created from his own stash of minifigures!  Going on ebay was great because he was reading all about what he was looking at and the prices.  He could even tell you when the auctions ended!  I was impressed!

Just think of all of the reading he was doing!  We read with him to get him intrigued.  Then, he read all about the Harry Potter Lego sets.  He used the picture and captions in the book to create his own Quidditch field.  Then he read the ebay listings to find the other things he needed to complete his masterpiece!

There are endless possibilities to "fun" reading.  I just wish that the students in my school could get this passionate about reading!   Hopefully this story of how reading isn't just novels or picture books, but everything will help your students realize that reading is and can be fun!

What kind of FUN things do your kids like to read over the summer?