After the school year was finished, and all of the required reading programs had ended, Thade was burned out… I want to keep him reading this Summer, but to keep him interested, I have to be a bit creative.

I have a few tips that have worked for me so far.

I’ve started reading more… This is good for both of us. When he catches me reading, he has a million questions about what I’m reading, what characters are involved, how many more chapters I have, and so on. It usually peaks his interest, and he’ll go choose a book to read too. Right now he is reading through the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series at night, and I’m reading the Hunger Games.

I have stashed books all over the house. I have bins of books all over the living room, and shelves covered in their room. I’ve started a collection for Agnes too. I encourage him to take a minute and read a quick book to his siblings. He’ll pick a short one, but it doesn’t matter. His brother and sister love to listen, and seeing a cool big kid read encourages them to want to read too.

I also encourage him to read beyond his school grade… Thade is an advanced reader, and I’m really proud of him for his accomplishment. This also leads him to become bored easily when he is assigned something that he can breeze through. Last school year he would get in trouble with the librarian for trying to check out a book that was above his grade level. I say read what is required at school, and read what you love on you own free time. This rebellious attitude towards reading makes him want to read longer chapter books, and he keeps pushing himself to jump up another level in reading too.

One of my favorites is to let him read all of the menus, junk mail, magazines, coupons, and fliers that come our way. He loves to properly enunciate the punctuation marks, and scream when it is in all caps. It is hilarious, but his enthusiasm is adorable. The local fliers are much more entertaining when you have an eight year old reading them to you. It sneaks in everyday reading and understanding too, and he thinks it is just fun.

Do you have any tips to help keep kids motivated with their Summer reading?