After a year of only leaving our homes for essential excursions, things are starting to open back up again. Since reading is the most effective way for our kids to keep their brains active and learning all summer long, why not  bite the bullet and make one of your out of the house excursions a visit to your local library. They know how to make reading fun for your child, so it’s the perfect place to get your kids excited about reading again.

Our local library, like so many others around the country, has a variety of special reading events throughout the summer to keep kids reading. This year our library’s summer theme, Choose Your Own READventure, is built around whatever each individual child enjoys. In an effort to get kids into the library they have a variety of interactive exhibits, game days and special events all centered on making an adventure out of reading.

To get kids to read and keep reading throughout the summer – there’s a Summer Reading Challenge. This is my favorite part.

• The library sets up reading goals, age appropriate and ones you can adapt to your child’s reading level.
• Kids register to participate. So it’s a choice and commitment they make and they feel really cool when they sign up. In our family we made this a very big deal!
• The library provides a reading log, so kids can track their reading time. And there is also an app to log reading minutes with extra badges and chances to win prizes. It’s always good to see the how much time is being spent reading. This can help motivate kids and parents.
• When kids meet their goals, they head back to the library to collect praise and prizes! They feel good about meeting their goals, honoring a commitment and the prizes are a fun extra.

Libraries really want people to read and they put a lot of effort into creating programs and activities to help you keep your kids engaged. So stop in, check out some books for the kids and see what your library has to offer this summer. If there are no reading programs being offered – try this online version offered by Scholastic.

What do you do to keep your kids reading all summer?