8 Summer Reading Programs for Kids

By savingsmania May 29, 2012

Summer is a great time to get your children reading. And these rewards programs make it even more fun!

Barnes & Noble: Kids can earn a FREE BOOK when they read any 8 books. Just go here and download the Reading Journal, then when its complete, bring it in to your local B&N store and kids can choose a FREE book from their list. You can also download a Parent Activity or Educator Kit for fun reading activities and teaching tips.

Chuck E Cheese: Kids can earn 10 FREE tokens every time they read for 2 weeks in a row. You can download the Reading Rewards Calendar and when its complete, bring it in to your local Chuck E Cheese. Limit of 1 FREE Token Offer per child per day at pariticapting locations. Food purchase is required.

iVillage / PBS KIDS: iVillage and PBS KIDS have created a six-week, “Summer Reading Community Challenge” set to start June 18th. Program includes a daily email with reading tips and fun activities from the experts at PBS KIDS and Scholastic, book suggestions and discounts, free downloads of PBS KIDS shows, and a daily chance to win $1,000 and other great prizes. You can sign up here by entering your email address.

Local Libraries: Don’t forget to check out your local library’s Summer Reading Program. The theme for this Summer for most locations is Dream Big Read! Many will have free activities and prizes for goals reached. Call your local library for details. You can also go here for a directory of national library systems. Click on your state and then find your city.

Scholastic Summer Challenge: Kids can sign up and log their reading minutes to win cool rewards with this FREE online program from Scholastic. Parents can get reading tips, booklists and track their kids reading either online or on their phone. Go here for more details and to sign up, just click on the “Get Started” button in the lower right corner and then click on join now in the pop-up box.

Sylvan Book Adventure: Kids in grades K-8 can read a book from the Book Adventure list, take quizzes on what they’ve read, and earn prizes. There are almost 8,000 books to choose from and you can search by title, author or grade. On the quizzes, kids need to score at least a 90% to earn points but quizzes can be taken more than once. You can check out the Prize Library HERE. If you are between the ages of 7 and 16 (as of March 1, 20112) you can enter The “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days of Summer” Reading Contest for a chance to win tickets to see the movie, in theaters on August 3rd. To get started, go HERE to register.

TD Bank: Kids can earn a $10 deposit for a new or existing Young Saver Account by reading 10 books this summer. Just go HERE to print out the Summer Reading Form to record your books and when completed, take it to your nearest TD Bank.

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Comments

by shortj1016 | BELLEVILLE, IL

Jun 13, 2012

I'm so glad I ran into this! I read to my 4 year old daughter every night before bed. She will turn 5 in August and then start Kindergarten 4 days later! I always loved to read and hope that I can instill that in her and that she will grow a love for reading. Knowing these programs exist just make me happy! A great way to give kids motivation to read and to accomplish something over the summer!

by basilandcatnip | GARLAND, TX

Jun 01, 2012

Our library starts the summer reading program this weekend....including one for adults! : ) Lots of activities planned too that go along with encouraging reading and making learning fun.

by Page55 | Schoolcraft, MI

Jun 01, 2012

We like the Sylvan program - many of the books are the same ones that the kids read for their school Accelerated Reader program. We do the B&N one every year as well as our local library. I love to read and have enjoyed sharing the pleasure of reading with my children. Thanks for the list of programs available. I was not aware of the Scholastic one.

by pethrift | Woodbine, GA

May 31, 2012

My daughter is signed up for 2 out of the 8, the Sylvan Book Adventure and the Scholastic Summer Challenge. I am not sure how long we are going to continue with the Sylvan one though, we have tons of books here at home and very few are on their list of quizzes. I attempted to join the quiz making group, but you have to have a college degree which I find very off putting. It seems like Sylvan believes that only the people with college degrees can write questions about a book for children, kind of a put down to those of us that didn't choose to continue with college. The scholastic one is great, but there again you run into problems, like the fact that you cannot create your own user name. They want a child during summer vacation to read 120 minutes a week which is around 20 minutes a day, but sometimes that is not feasible with summer activities, you have to do this for your child to be able to spin the wheel for a prize.

by monson42 | PHOENIX, AZ

May 31, 2012

Thanks so much for this list. I love summer reading programs, even more so that my kids are teens. Our local libraries have great teen programs and all the programs provide great incentives to keep my kids reading over the summer.