Why is reading so important?

With summer on the way, children (and parents) enjoy playing outside more and making the most of the longer day with exciting activities. It’s crucial to keep your child reading during summer, especially the holiday period. Children who don’t keep reading are at risk of losing important skills before school starts again. According to Scholastic, children who read just six books during the summer are less likely to have lost reading skills when they return to school.

This means that if your children can make a little bit of time for books and other texts each day, they’ll be much more prepared to start the next school year strong! It’s a simple and effective way to make sure your child will be ready to succeed in school.

What is the summer Reading Challenge?

St Bede’s is proud to be launching the inaugural Summer Reading Challenge to combat the ‘summer slide’ or summer slump’. It is very simple for children to participate and enter the draw to win 1 of 2 kindles or 1 of 20 book vouchers. Parents or older siblings are most welcome to assist by reading.

How to be involved?

Children will receive a checklist with 48 activities or suggestions on what to read and where to read. As your child completes a task, they check it off the list. Leave the list on the fridge or a safe place (we will have extra copies available). Once summer is over, children return their sheet to school and will be placed into a draw. Each task is worth 1 ticket.

We would love to see an enormous amount of engagement with reading. To assist in keeping momentum, we ask that parents share comments or photographs of some of the challenges being completed. Look out for our regular Facebook posts! Example: Challenge #1 Read outside, you could take a photo of your child reading outside or post a photo of the view without your child.

Key Dates:

Friday 1 December 2023: Challenge starts (first day of summer)

Thursday 29 February 2024: Challenge Ends (final day of summer)

Friday 1 March 2024- Friday 8 March: return checklists with name

Monday 11 March 2024: Prizes drawn and winners announced