Summer Reading Promotions 2012!

Public pools have been opened, kids and teachers are beginning to count down the school days, and here at our house, we're starting to prepare for Summer Reading!

Please remember that I'm just a parent searching for info for my kids and I may not be getting every detail here.  Please visit the links and read through what these companies are offering for yourself.

Here are the four I have found so far:

Promotion Name:  TD Bank  Summer Reading Program for Kids

Link:

http://www.tdbank.com/summerreading/

How Many Books the Child Must Read to Qualify: 10

Specifics:  Print out form, fill out form, bring to a branch of TD Bank

Reward:  $10 deposited into a new or exisiting Young Savers bank account.  (You can only redeem one $10 Coupon per summer, apparently, but hey, it's 10 bucks!!)

Valid Dates: May 5 - Sept. 29 2012

Notes/Heads Up: This requires you to open an account for your child, if you do not already have one at this bank.  

My Personal Thoughts on this Specific Program:  I think that this is a great idea to reinforce two important concepts, 1) Reading is good, 2) Saving money is helpful.  They've also run this promotion for the past 10 years, so I suspect they will try to continue it.  $10 a summer is not a bad income for a kid in elementary school!

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Promotion Name:  Chuck E. Cheese's Reading Rewards

Link:

http://www.chuckecheese.com/promotions/pdf/CECRewardCal_READING_2012.pdf

Days in a Row Child Must Read to Qualify:  Two weeks

Specifics:  Print out form, Check off reading Acheivements, Bring to a Participating location, make the required food purchase, get reward. 

Reward: 10 Free Tokens

Valid Dates: Now through 12/31/2012

Note/Heads Up:   There are not a lot of details on the CEC website, but you are REQUIRED to purchase food, and the children are not supposed to use more than one free token per day per visit.  CEC has a huge number of rewards programs, by the way, from "Potty Perfect" to a reward for good grades.  

My Personal Thoughts on this Specific Promotion:  CEC can be loud, chaotic and overwhelming.  We avoid at all costs going at popular times, prefering the quite mornings and so forth.  The idea that the kids can get 10 free tokens but are only allowed to use one per visit is, in my humble opinion, silly, and with a child with food allergies, the "food purchase required" may be problematic as well.  That said, we have a class trip heading over there anyway, so we might as well fill out the form and bring it along since we have time before we go!!

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Promotion Name: Barnes and Noble Summer Reading

Link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/summer-reading/379003570

How Many Books the Child Must Read to Qualify: 8

Specifics:  Print out and fill in the Reading Journal with the title, author and recommendation (who would child recommend book to and why), Bring to Barnes and Noble store, Choose a free book from the Reading Journal choices.

Reward: A free book from their selected Reading Journal list.

Valid Dates: May 22- September 4, 2012

Notes/Heads Up: Child has to think about to whom and why they'd recommend the book, but it is meant to be that they read things they're interested in.

My Personal Thoughts on this Specific Promotion:  I love that my child has to think about the book and write her response (about her recommendation), as this is similar to the Caldecott Club my kids participate in at their school.  The selection of free books is limited, but I am a strong believer in reading and education in general and this is an opportunity for them to pick books out for themselves so it is nice for their sense of independence and self concept as well.

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Promotion Name: Sylvan Learning Book Adventure

Link: 

http://www.bookadventure.com/Home.aspx

What you must do to qualify: Free Registration through the website to participate

Specifics: This website allows children to read books, take quizzes on them and then gain points for each quiz they take.  Children can also create book lists (or at my house, I create the book list with my kids beside me), so this is one way to track summer reading.

Rewards: There is a small selection of prizes in their "Prize Library" to choose from, from temporary tatoos to six months free subscription to Highlights Magazine to free books.  

Valid Dates: Now through I'm not sure when.  (Sorry, I couldn't find this info on the site and I have a child asking me to help her with something so I'm going to stop typing shortly! lol)

Notes/Heads Up:  Apparently, a whole class could sign up for this, so it might be a good resource for teachers as well.  You can also create your own reading challenge and participate in a couple of additional programs from their Book Adventure homepage.

My Personal Thoughts on this Specific Promotion: I love this one.  My eldest is excited to see how many correct answers she can get on the quizzes, and there are books like "Goodnight Gorilla" that have very few words so my younger child can also participate fully in this promotion.  

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General Thoughts:

I realize that for some kids reading is a chore.  Starting young seems to be the thing most experts agree on.  If you are a parent of a young child, from prenatal through first grade or so, I strongly recommend involvement in a Raising Readers Parent Club, to learn skills to encourage a love of reading (which can be done even if the adult is not a strong reader!).  Participation in this program is truly enjoyable (spoken as one who's a graduate of this program).  Over the weeks the Club meets, there is typically a light dinner for the family, child care for the children, and a free book to take home to practice new approaches with the kids.  Did you read that?  Dinner, Child Care and a FREE (good!!) kids' book each week.  

Excuse me while I brag about my kids for a minute.  When I participated in Raising Readers, my eldest was just starting to read simple words.  This was just last year.  She's now reading 80 page (admittedly, mostly fluff fiction) chapter books in a half hour car ride.  My little one just turned four and (in great part due to her speech therapy classes) is now sounding out words and can work through a BOB book with some help.  I suspect some of this is just my kids, some of it is that they see me reading a great deal for my various jobs and for pleasure, and some of it is that we've made a point since before their births to have a bookshelf for them.  We just got them a second one.  The books on their shelves are mostly gifts or from the thrift store (Savers has a buy four get the fifth free type thing).  But they read.  In a time when the teachers have so much pressure on them with testing and social worries, it is critical to our children's success to guide them with reading at home.  

Summer reading is one way that we can reinforce the importance of reading, and encourage a true love for it, by allowing the kids to lead the way.  There are a ton of books out there presently that are total fluff, entertainment value type books for children of any gender.  There are also a lot of very compelling nonfiction books for kids who are into a specific topic, like volcanos or horses and so forth.  Biographies are a great place to start with reluctant readers too -- sports heros, famous inventors, astronauts, and so forth are real-life people children can relate to.  Allowing kids to pick a topic and read several books on it, and then create a simple project (collaging a "word cloud" or images relating to the book, or write a post card to their teacher talking about the book, for examples) makes what would other wise be a "research project" a fun summer past time.  Plus, when they go back to school, they've gotten their brains more filled up rather than letting all their smarts melt and leak away in the heat.  :)

Good luck with the summer reading, remember to keep it fun!  If I find more, I'll share it.  Please feel free to share the programs you are participating in as well!!