Clifford, the Big Red Dog, is 50 years old! Yikes!!! That is one old puppy - to say nothing of BIG! So go to Scholastic.com and send Clifford a birthday card. Play Clifford-y games. Print out Clifford coloring pages. Enter the Clifford Sweepstakes. That's our Kids Book Website for today.
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| Scholastic Publishers had a BIG birthday party yesterday for the best dog ever! |
Check out
First Book, an organization that distributes books to children who live with few or any books in their lives. First Book supports other literacy programs as well. Please look at their website at
www.firstbook.org and help this fine organization out.
Parents are always asking which books are best for their children - best as in "most likely to make my child smarter" and best as in "I don't want to waste my time on some silly little book."
My answer has always been, "If you and your child both like the book, THAT is the best book for you."
Hmmm, not good enough, I'm afraid. So check out
Scholastic.com's 100 Best Books for children. There, that should keep you all happy for awhile.
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| Start them young. Start them right - or is that correctly? |
But, in case, you really want more, more, more - as well you should - check out
Betsy Bird's blog, A Fuse#8 Production, and scroll down til you see the little tabs on the right hand that say 100 Best Picture Books, and 100 Best Chapter Books. You may be able to get a Pdf of Betsy's latest 100 best poll that finished up at the end of June. So many great books are on these lists.
So, here's an idea. Run a Summer Reading Club! Offer kids free books - or prizes - when they successfully;
a. Complete a predetermined number of books, or pages or amount of time
b. Answer questions about the books they read OR write a review OR tell someone about the book
c. Attend programs in your place of business
d. Complete a scavenger hunt OR a puzzle OR find a hidden object
e. Do all or any combination of the above.
So, who runs these Summer Reading Clubs?
Public Libraries! I said,
PUBLIC LIBRARIES! Bookstores! (
Like the Moravian Book Shop) (Click on these links to learn more about their summer reading clubs.) Publishers! Those three make sense. Some school districts run reading clubs. Tutoring centers run reading centers. Here are a few of the more well-known Summer Reading Clubs.
Sylvan Learning Centers run
BookAdventure. (Check out the snazzy buccaneer dinosaur and dog!) Sylvan has produced quizzes on recommended books. And quiz taking is part of the club's requirements. Sylvan boasts that they have quizzes for close to 8000 books so you should find something you or your young reader like..
Barnes and Noble Booksellers have run
Summer Reading Clubs for years. This year's theme, Imagination's Destination, dovetails nicely with the
Collaborative Summer Library Program's theme of Dream Big - Read (The Public library program). Barnes and Noble just asks that readers in grades 1 through 6 to read and record a set number of books. It's easy!
Scholastic Books asks kids - or teachers - to log their time spent reading.
Word Girl is the mascot this year and Scholastic offers certificates, activities, booklists and more. Check it out.
PBSKids has partnered with other organizations to provide Reading Programs - like the
Soar with Reading program sponsored by PBSKids and JetBlue. Join to earn prizes AND to donate books to needy children around the USA.
iVillage has joined with PBSKids to provide their own Summer Reading Challenge.
Click here for more information. The program offers daily email tips for increasing your child's literacy skills. This is a great program for parents of "emerging" readers.
BTW, I wondered if Amazon.com offered a Summer Reading Program and a simple search only offered me a chance to buy a book. Hmmm. I guess brick and mortar stores care more about the literacy of their future customers than online merchants. If I am wrong, please send me the link to Amazon's Summer Reading program. I promise to post it here.
By: bookkm,
on 9/25/2012
