Courtesy PBS
A television network working with a website to push reading with your kids? Oh. Wait. It’s PBS – part of their whole reason for existing is getting kids to turn off the tube and read books.
Which is why iVillage is hosting the PBS Kids Summer Reading Challenge. The idea is for you to read with your kids, and they’ll provide the certificates, book recommendations based on your kid’s interests and age and other activities to keep them learning, plus daily email tips.
It starts Monday, July 5, but you can sign up now at ivillage.com/pbs.
One of the goals for the program is to (according to the PBS press release) “combat summer learning regression, which is the general loss of academic skills over summer vacation.” Now, I can understand teachers not wanting to spend September re-teaching the previous grade. And the best way to learn a new skill, such as deciphering letters to make words and ideas, is to practice it.
But kids also need a break. They need time to relax and just be squirrelly and play on their own terms. It’s massively important for their creative development, even if the whining about being bored can be a bit much at times.
So I think this would be a great program, but approach it as a fun thing to do for the summer, and, yes, they’ll have plenty of time to run around the yard and the local park. They need that, too.
Secondly (and I can’t figure out why I seldom see this bit of advice, but it’s so critical to building good readers), make sure you don’t just read to your kids, but let them see you enjoying a good book, yourself. It’s all about modeling the behavior. You want your kids to be readers? Let them see you reading, preferably for fun. I don’t care if it’s a Kindle, Nook, iPhone or hardcover. Graduate level textbooks or trashy novels. If your kids see you reading for enjoyment, they’ll get the idea that reading is a fun thing to do.
You can read to them non-stop, take them to the library so often they know the librarians by their first names (both excellent things to do and part of the process, mind you). But it will all be for naught if your kids don’t see you reading. They may read as kids, but they won’t as grown ups.
So after you’ve read your child the latest Curious George for the umpteenth time, let the tyke look at the pictures whilst you crank open the latest potboiler. Settle in with some popcorn and something tasty to drink and you’ve got a great evening ahead of you.
