It’s May, so it’s time to Get Caught Reading! May is all about celebrating the excitement and delight of getting lost in a good book. Whether it’s a beloved classic or a brand-new adventure, reading should be a natural and enjoyable activity for students, and Get Caught Reading Month aims to promote this mindset.
Reignite the reading spark with Get Caught Reading Month activities! Consider schoolwide and classroom activities. Host a schoolwide or classroom book swap and reading time, the finale of which is surprise pictures of your students caught reading! Introduce new genres and ways of reading. Teach a new reading lesson. Bring an author into your classroom. Don’t forget to get caught reading yourself. Whatever you do, make reading fun!
Summer Reading Ideas & Incentives
But why stop the fun when May ends? Keep that reading momentum going strong throughout the summer break. Encourage your students to explore new worlds, meet fascinating characters, and embark on literary adventures all season. With the right activities and incentives, you can ensure that the thrill of reading never fades, even when school is out.
Collaborate with your school and public libraries to make it happen. Help your students jump that summer reading gap! Encourage parents to take students to your local public library to participate in their summer reading program. This year’s U.S. summer reading theme is “Adventure Begins at Your Library.” Get your students excited about summer reading with these fun incentives from various companies:
- Camp BOOK IT! is Pizza Hut’s summer reading incentive program open to parents of PreK–6 grade students (ages 4–12).
- Beanstack’s Summer Reading Challenge provides a platform for people to log the minutes they read and earn badges throughout the challenge. It is designed to motivate people to read more through various challenges and activities.
- Bookworm Wednesdays from Showcase Cinemas encourages and rewards summer reading by entitling kids to free admission to a select children’s film when they present a book report at a participating cinema.
- HPB Summer Reading Camp from Half Price Books provides registered participants access to printable camp components all summer, including reading lists, activity ideas, and coloring sheets.
- The 15th Annual Summer Reading Contest from the New York Times invites middle and high school students to share what they’re reading and why. Participants can choose any piece of writing, such as a novel, memoir, or news article, and submit a short explanation.
- The Summer Reading Zone on Scholastic’s Home Base platform is a free, digital destination where kids can engage in summer reading activities with children nationwide. The program is safe and moderated.
- The Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program offers students in grades 1–6 a path to earning a free book. Students read a designated number of books, write about their favorite part in their reading journals, and bring the journals to a Barnes & Noble store.
You can offer students a book list or prepare your own. You’ll also want to provide students with a fun summer reading log. Share one or more classwide summer reading activities and make summer reading fun!
Encourage your students to Get Caught Reading in May and continue reading throughout the summer! As always, check out TeachersFirst for more reading resources and helpful blog posts. Do you have favorite reading activities? Please share them in the comments below! Happy reading!
I love all these resources that are shared. I love to read and to share that love.
These are great ideas to keep kids engaged and keep up with reading over the summer.
These are awesome resources! Keeping students interested in reading throughout the summer is always a challenge. Half price books really appealed to me.
The get caught reading concept is a great one. I feel that Pizza Hut thing would be a really good concept. The students would love to be able to win free Pizza Hut pizza while reading during the summer. This is something that would be able to be caught on and all students want to do it. I figured that this would be a great idea to keep the students involved throughout the summer. This is something that would be able to be caught on and all students want to do it. I figured that this would be a great idea to keep the students involved throughout the summer. Because we all know as educators it is very tough to have the students continue to read throughout the summer.