This summer help your children retain the literacy progress they made during their school-year. To assist teachers, parents, and students, Zonderkidz (@Zonderkidz) has created a 100 Day Bible Reading Plan (website) that runs Memorial Day weekend (May 28th) through Labor Day (September 4th). These brief chapter-long Scripture passages are a great way for kids to grow in their faith while keeping up on important reading skills.

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Here are a few tips to ignite the reading fire in your child:

• Make shared reading a fun experience for your child. Set up a reading outing. Bring your child to a café, order a hot chocolate, and read together.
• Find a place to read that will help your child focus. Turn off the television, radio, cell phone, and computer.
• Make reading a tactile experience. Trace letters in the sand. Use magnetic letters, wooden blocks, or press-on letters when working with your child on letters and letter sounds.
• Take turns reading aloud. Taking turns is fun and can make reading less daunting.
• Reading is a great opportunity to learn new vocabulary. Pick out new words in a story and talk about what they mean. Have your child try making up sentences with the new words.
• Try acting out action words with your child.
• Have your child read to the dog. No kidding! Dogs are good, nonjudgmental listeners—so are stuffed animals if you don’t have a pet.
• Does your child sometimes lose his or her place? Demonstrate using your finger under the words to track where you are, especially when moving from one line to the next.
• When your child gets stuck, go back to the basics! Cover up all but the first letter of the word, and move your finger to the right as your child reads each sound. Then read the word quickly together.
• Ask your child if the word he or she read makes sense. Have your child keep reading to the end of the sentence, then go back and reread.

Don’t have 100 days? Zonderkdiz’s Bible reading plan is divided into 7 shorter themes. Explore each theme at your own pace:

Instill in your children the love of reading the Bible this summer! For further inspiration, check out these articles from the Bible Gateway Blog:

• The NIrV Seek and Explore Holy Bible: Hunting for God’s Treasure
• New Children’s Bible Includes 1,000 Bible Quiz Questions: An Interview with Troy Schmidt
• Better Than a Space Knight’s Force: May the Faith Be With You Bible
• Show Your Kids the Incredible Treasures of God’s Word
• The NIV Kids’ Visual Study Bible: An Interview with Sara Bierling

 

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Note: This article was updated June 15, 2023.