In honor of National Read Aloud Month coming up in March, I thought it would be fun to have a reading challenge where both parents and children can participate. The “rules” of this challenge will be simple: read aloud with your child(ren) for at least 15 minutes every day during the month of March. If you want to read more than 15 minutes that’s fine too, but the goal is to aim for 15 minutes of reading time with your little readers. Do you think you can handle that? Are you game? If so, read on.
A read aloud reading challenge can help motivate all readers to:
- Spend quality time together connecting face-to-face
- Read for enjoyment
- Overcome reading obstacles or fears of reading aloud publicly
- Find more time to read
- Help encourage parents to read with their children
- Help encourage children to read with each other
If you decide to participate in this challenge with your kids, I know that thing called “life” may inevitably creep up on you. There may be some hard days and you may miss a day, or two, or more. If that happens, please give yourself enough grace to know that it’s okay. You’re not a terrible parent, a failure, or any of the other stories you make up in your mind. You simply didn’t read with your kids that day, but tomorrow is another day (God willing).
In the event you skip a day, perhaps the next day you double your reading time and make it 30 minutes. If 30 minutes in one sitting is too much for you, perhaps you can break it up into two 15-minute read aloud sessions. You get the picture – do what works best for you and your family.
There will be no specific type of reading material you need to read with your kids. It can be books, magazines, or e-books, it’s all good! You can also choose to read whatever books you want. However, if you’re the type of person who prefers lists or likes the idea of having some direction for your reading choices, below I’ve listed a few ideas to help get you started. Again, these ideas are not part of the reading challenge, I just included them for people who may tend to choose the same genres over and over again with their kids and want to mix it up a bit.
- A book written by an African-American female
- A book that is a bedtime story
- A book of poems
- A book of fairy tales, fables, or myths
- A book about a historical event or person
- A book that is funny and makes you laugh out loud
- A book that has the word ‘friend’ in the title
- A book your grown-up read and loved as a child
- A book that is part of a series
- A book that has a color in the title
- A book on display at the library or bookstore
- A book that is a classic children’s book written between the years 1970 and 1995
- A book that has an animal name in the title
- A book that has a number in the title
- A book about another culture besides your own
- A book about food that also includes a recipe
- A non-fiction book about animals
- A book about Easter
- A book about St. Patrick’s Day
- A book about Spring
- A book about an inspirational female in honor of Women’s History Month (can be living or dead)
- A book about vehicles/transportation
- A book about the weather
- A book about school
- A book about community helpers
- A book about sharing
- A new book published in 2019 (I’ve listed over 125+ books to choose from here)
- A book that won a Caldecott medal
- A book about trees, plants or flowers
- A bilingual book (can be any languages)
- A few stories from a children’s magazine
- A book written by author Carole Boston Weatherford
- A book illustrated by Christopher Myers
- A non-fiction book about bugs
Need some book suggestions? Check out a few of my book lists:
100 Children’s Books to Read in 2016
Children’s Magazines
The Ultimate List of 2016 Children’s Picture and Board Books
I made a printable coloring page that you can use to help keep track of your reading. Each day you read aloud with your kids for at least 15 minutes, let your kids color in a star. My kids are motivated by charts that can be colored in. There is a total of 31 stars on the chart – one for each day in March. You can download a copy of the coloring page here.
This is great, but do I get a prize for completing the challenge?
If you and your kids complete this reading challenge, you can enter to win a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card.
Please note: There will be no way for me to tell if you actually completed this challenge, so it will be solely based on the honor system. Please be true to yourself and your kids and only enter if you actually complete the challenge.
To enter, simply send me an e-mail at: hereweeread{at}gmail.com between April 1 – 6, 2016. In the e-mail please include a picture of the coloring page as an attachment. (All stars should be colored in.) Feel free to let your kids get creative and add different designs to the page if they choose. The subject of your e-mail should be ‘I’m a Reading Rock Star’. In the body of the e-mail please include your child’s first name, age, and the city you live in. (If you have multiple children, please only include information for one child in your e-mail.)
I will then randomly select a winner using random.org by Friday, April 8th. The winner will have 24 hours to respond before an alternate winner is chosen.
A love of reading is one of the best gifts we can give our kids. This read aloud reading challenge is just another way to work reading into your family’s life. I hope you’ll join in the fun and enjoy spending time reading with your kids next month even if you don’t win the gift card. Besides, you’re already winning if you’re reading!
To learn more about National Read Aloud Month please visit http://readaloud.org.
Your turn: Do you like the idea of a read aloud reading challenge? Are you planning to participate? Feel free to share in the comments.
