Monday, June 15, 2009

Summer Reading


I have been waiting for a few months for the book Storm Glass. I really enjoyed the Study Series from this author and this new book is a break-off from the Study Series. I spent a lot of my day yesterday reading and got about half way through the book. When I showed my kids how much I had read in one day they were impressed (they don't understand that I should be embarrassed to read that much in one day because it means I didn't get much else done).

I took a break from my reading last night to sit down and read with Z Man and Princess Izzybee. It is such a fight to get Z Man to read, especially when I want to read to him or have him read his book out loud to me. Princess Izzybee was happy to sit down and read a Junie B. Jones book to me and she reads really well. Z Man didn't want to read to me, he wanted to read on his own and after listening to him read the first chapter of his Dinosaur Cove book I understood why. He really struggles with reading and in my opinion is a bit lazy about it. If he doesn't know the word he just skips over it or says a word that starts with the first letter of the word without even trying to get it correct. When he reads on his own he skips through a lot of the book. I haven't had him read to me for quite a while, I've let him read alone but through the summer I am going to make him read to me so I can hear if he is improving.

Last week I also started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Most people who know me know that I absolutely love the Harry Potter series and have read it many times (I actually started reading the series last month again and I'm on book 5). I thought Z Man would like it but he claims he's not liking it very much, it's boring. Last night I could tell he was finally starting to get into the book a little. I'm hoping as we continue he will like it more. Through the summer I was hoping to read the first few Harry Potter books with him and then try Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing and The Lightning Thief series which I've heard is good. I just hope if I keep reading to Z Man and encouraging him to read to me that not only will his reading improve but his love for reading as well.

Last night I was trying the think of some reading incentives for the kids and thought maybe after every 10 chapter books they would get a reward like a fun activity or movie or something. This morning Randy suggested the first reward should be a trip to Chucky Cheese (they have been begging to go there but we have been putting it off since it's not our favorite place as parents). I also decided that 10 books may seem like too many so I changed it to every 5 chapter books for a reward. I hope this helps them want to read and by them I should be saying Z Man.

Does anyone else have any ideas or suggestions for kids reading incentives?

2 comments:

RANDY said...

Would anyone like to take our kids to Chucky Cheese?

Patty said...

I don't want to take them to Chuck E Cheese, but I was going to suggest some things from the dollar store for like every book or every 5 books, then maybe chuck E cheese for more books.