Summer reading or not

Ten years ago, I would have loved to write a post about summer reading. My eldest two children read easily and voraciously. Writing about their summer reading would have meant writing about lovely lists of books and what to do when it just wasn't possible to keep up with finding sufficient reading material. I love books and this was fun. Book lists are great and I'm hoping to write about themlater in the summer.

But fast forward, ten years and summer reading is more difficult. Children who either can read but don't like to or who would love to read but have found learning to read anything but easy. Adding to this a little one who is interested but, not surprisingly,  would prefer me to read to him than to read books full of CVC words (those simple three letter words with a consonant, vowel and consonant such as cat and dog).

This isn't an uncommon situation and some boys, especially, can be less keen on reading.

So what am I planning? The library reading scheme offering, this year, is called Creepy House which is off-putting to say the least. So not the library.

Well the plans are a bit varied but involve

• reading aloud-I'm often not so consistent about this in the holidays but really need to keep this up. Perhaps extending the read aloud at bedtime. 

• Audio books, hopefully, from the library. Ideal for car journeys. Enid Blyton's Famous Five series is a hit with the younger two. Michael Murpurgo's Adophus Tips was also well received.

• Poetry picnics

• Visiting places associated with books. It is often surprising what can be found locally or what may resemble places in books.

• DVDs-OK this isn't reading but two of these children loved the DVD of Bleak House. These are children who either just wouldn't have wanted to read the book, yes, we tried or just couldn't have managed it, no, we didn't try. For the second of these children, this led to a request for me to read a simplified version aloud and another viewing of the DVD along with loads of discussion about favourite characters, saddest moment etc. This discussion was all child generated.

• Possibly a children's show related to a book. This really depends what is on but the younger two have enjoyed a performance of the Snail and the Whale.

• Pure picture books and picture puzzle books. The Edwardian books by Edward Goodall are some of our favourites.

• Strewing books and magazines. This seems to work especially well with recipe books!

• Books with text but also plenty of pictures. Usborne have some lift the flap books with detailed pictures and a little text. Other books like this include Stephen Biesty's Cross Sections and A slice through a city by Peter Kent.

• Comic books  such as Asterix and Tintin especially seem to appeal to boys. They can be obtained in several languages so can be a gentle way to keep up with other languages!

Please feel free to add other suggestions.

This is linked to Summer reading for boys on the Schoolhouse Crew blog.