Summer Reading

It's summertime, and hopefully you've got plenty of time for relaxing and playing outside. There's also oppressive heat and dangerous levels of sun intensity though, and around here nobody really wants to go outside between 11 and 3. Fortunately my kids enjoy reading, and our library bag comes back full to spilling out with every library visit. We don't have that Advanced Reading, read a minimum of 3 books and take 3 quizzes for points deal here. I don't like summertime reading to be a source of stress for the kids. I do however like the idea of monitoring their reading comprehension, and I love the prize incentives our local library offers for summer reading. For these reasons I was delighted to stumble upon this site: Book Adventure. It's a free site sponsored by Sylvan, and it offers book lists customized by your child's reading level and interests, as well as the opportunity to take quizzes based on the books selected for small prizes (usually printable or downloadable). Parents can monitor progress and approve or reject prizes from their own accounts. Sparks got a whole list of book suggestions that he probably wouldn't have found otherwise. He picked up 3 of them on our last trip to the library. My 8-year-old just won an instruction sheet for making balloon animals. She was really excited about that. Did I mention, it's all free?