Summer Reading - for Beginners

Sophia was so close to really being able to read on her own when the school year ended, I wanted to make sure she kept it up and continued to improve over the summer. She knew how to read, but didn't quite have the confidence (or desire, honestly) to read BOOKS by herself. Well, sure enough, about a week after school was out, she started reading, and she's just really taken off!

Here are some things we've been doing the past couple of months and this summer to encourage and motivate her:

*New Books!! Okay, this might be for me more than her... those first readers are sooo boring after the first time, and they are cheap, so I ordered about 10 of them off Amazon. Plus Sophia's sweet teacher gave her some at the end of the year, and

*The Library!! Not only is the library a great source for new reading material, they have great programs to promote reading. We've been going to storytime at the library as our schedule permits (usually when I'm on maternity leave with someone!) since the kids were babies. Yesterday, Sophia and I went and got her her very own library card

and we signed her up for the Summer Reading Club. She tracks all the books she reads for stickers, and she also plays this BINGO game where she gets prizes for completing certain things (reading a book about Asia, writing her own story about her life, etc.) - this has been HUGELY motivating for her! They meet every Thursday morning, so I'm trying to work it into my schedule or have Davis take them when I can't. I also want her to continue to work on being responsible for things like library books. In Kindergarten, her school did a great job teaching these kids to keep track of and be responsible for their own things (library books, sunscreen, clothes, etc.) So Sophia has to keep track of her library books and take good care of them (we have a special spot for library books) or she'll lose her card.

*A reading caterpillar!! I've seen several variations on this (like making links out of construction paper instead of circles) - but what I did was use my 1.5" circle punch to make a bunch of circles out of construction paper. Every time Sophia reads a book by herself, we write the title of the book on a circle and add it to the caterpillar. We just started this week, so hopefully by the end of the summer that sucker will be LOOOONG!

*Reading to siblings!! Being able to read to Amelia and Henry has also been a great motivator for Sophia. Amelia loves it when Sophia reads to her, and it makes Sophia feel so much older. Henry isn't the greatest audience, but his board books are very easy to read and Sophia has fun reading them to him.

*Starfall.com!! This website is amazing! We have been playing on it for a couple of years, and are not at all bored with it. It has so many really well-done reading activities - movies, short stories for them to read with animations on every page, and games like sight word memory. Often when the little ones are napping/resting, Sophia will spend half an hour or so playing on Starfall.com, and there are several things I know she has mastered because of that site. It feels more fun to her than sitting with me and doing sight word flashcards, so it's an easy thing to get her to do when she's not in the mood for "learning."

*Bribery!! Okay, really, I need to be honest. Sophia was holding back on me with the reading books, I think in part because I have always read to her at night and I think she was scared I would stop. Of course I still read to her every day, but to push her over the edge and finally read a book front to back by herself, I told her I'd pay her a quarter - and it worked. That was the first book she read. She's actually not very motivated by money (she tends to give it all away, which is awesome) so she's forgotten about our quarter-for-a-book program. But it worked to get her started, so I'm including it here.

I also rewarded her with a cupcake and a Sprite after she did her testing at her new school.