At my daughter’s k – 3 school, there is a summer reading challenge. Each year the challenge changes, but the idea is to encourage a LOT of reading over the summer. This year it is to read 1000 pages over the next 10 weeks. Wow!
At first I thought we’d have trouble. However, last night we finished the first Junie B. Jones book, 68 pages. Then we read The Story of Samuel, 40 pages; finally Snip Snap, What’s That? gave us another 27 pages. 1000 pages for this new first grader should be doable!
The principal & I were talking and she said she’s tracked the students who have participated in the Reading Challenge and those who haven’t. What she’s found is those who don’t participate regress in their scores on the test the school uses to show growth. Those who do participate don’t hold steady, but make gains.
The power of reading . . . and if an Ice Cream Sundae can convince kids to read all summer long, then I say:
I scream
You scream,
We all scream for ICE CREAM!
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 
How does the challenge work? Do kids sign contracts? Do they do logs?
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This is exactly what I wrote about in my slice of life!
http://www.debrennersmith.com/2008/06/tuesday-3-slice-of-life-story-challenge.html
http://www.debrennersmith.com
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I agree that a little bribery in the form of an ice cream treat can be a good thing. I plan to keep books in the hands of my grandsons this summer. With the heat in Texas already bearing down on us, visits to the book store are just fine with me.
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Summer reading definitely makes a difference … at any age. I remember a student in one of our Basic Education classes years ago leaving for the summer and saying she was just going to spend the summer reading, not studying or doing any other work, just reading. When she came back in the fall and took her placement test for classes, her reading comprehension score had rocketed up. She scored so high that she by-passed the pre-GED class and moved straight into the GED prep class! She said that she had set a goal of reading half an hour every day … but that she’d gotten so into the things she was reading, she had ended up reading more like two hours a day.
Good luck on your summer challenge! I might create one of these for my students. Most of them (maybe none of them) will be my students in the next term, but maybe they will take the challenge anyway, to help them with the next level …
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