Bringing together creatures from Aotearoa’s rocky shore and exciting new books, Read NZ’s Summer Reading Challenge launches today. Check out the website – reading-challenge.org.nz
Read NZ Te Pou Muramura wants to get more Kiwi kids enjoying books over the summer and its annual reading challenge is sea-creature themed this year, thanks to illustrations by children’s author Stephanie Thatcher.
The Summer Reading Challenge is an interactive website. Children from five years old are invited to register for free and choose a team to play for. Players log the books they read over the summer, along with a star rating and short review. A ‘readerboard’ keeps track of the teams as they move up and down the rankings accordingly.
Guided by children’s feedback, the Summer Reading Challenge features a simplified book logging system and teams arranged by age groups.
It’s the fourth time the organisation has run the challenge. This year, there are six ways for children to win prizes, and only one is related to reading a large number of books.
Booksellers’ tokens will be awarded as spot prizes every day of the competition. There are lots of books to be won too, thanks to the support of local publishers, especially Upstart Press. To win a specially curated bundle of new books, children can send in a picture of their favourite book or their summer reading spot. The top readers in each team will also win Booksellers tokens at the end of the competition.
Read NZ Te Pou Muramura CEO Juliet Blyth says the reading challenge is a fun new way to address the well-documented ‘summer slide’ in learning over the holidays.
“We’re excited to be running our Reading Challenge again this summer. We want more children to experience the joy of reading and hopefully encourage other whānau members to pick up a book too,” she says.
“It’s easy to forget just how important it is to keep your kids reading over summer, with the excitement of Christmas and all the things to be done outside over the summer holidays that can take precedence.
“But even summer holidays have rainy days and encouraging your kids to pick up a book will help them when they return to school in the new year. The effects of the ‘summer slide’ are well documented – reading loss over the long break can be significant.
“Our reading challenge aims to make reading fun, and with spot prizes to be won every day the focus is on participation, not just on winning.”
Read NZ is grateful for the generous support of Booksellers New Zealand and Upstart Press for the prizes on offer.
Sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge by registering at reading-challenge.org.nz
