Summer #Bookaday Challenge

We all know that teachers who read are more effective at engaging their students with reading, but our school year demands often limit our reading time. Summer vacations give us an opportunity to recommit to reading, explore new books for our students, and dive into the books that we can’t find time to read during the school year.

The books are calling. They are loud. The stacks of books around my house are becoming a safety hazard, and I just stubbed my toe on Bitterblue.

Don’t laugh. I know this has happened to every one of you.

Give us your beach reads, your professional development texts, your Game of Thrones series waiting to be read. It is time for my 4th Annual Summer Book-a-Day Challenge.

The rules (more guidelines, really) are simple:

Read one book per day for each day of summer vacation. This is an average, so if you read three books one day (Hey, I have done this!) and none the next two, it still counts.

You set your own start date and end date.

 Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, poetry anthologies, or fiction—children’s, youth, or adult titles.

Keep a list of the books you read and share them often via a social networking site like goodreads or Twitter (post using the #bookaday hashtag), a blog, or Facebook page. You do not have to post reviews, but you can if you wish. Titles will do.

The #bookaday community has become a vibrant group of avid readers, teachers, and librarians who share book titles all year and participate in ongoing conversations about books, reading and the young readers we support. Many participants tell me that they rediscovered their love of reading and walked into their classrooms and libraries in the fall with mountains of books and reading experiences to share with their new students after the summer Book-a-Day Challenge.

 (I “met” Colby Sharp, my co-founder of The Nerdy Book Club, during last summer’s #bookaday event. Another piece of random Nerdy trivia.)

 Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what we read, or how much, or when. What matters is that we celebrate reading, share our book love with other readers, discover new titles, and enjoy ourselves. Consider it a public opportunity to fly your Nerdy flag all summer long.

I look forward to a great summer of reading.

Nerdies everywhere, may the reading binge begin!

Donalyn Miller is a sixth grade language arts teacher at Trinity Meadows Intermediate School in Keller, TX. She is the author of The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child. Donalyn co-hosts the monthly Twitter chat, #titletalk (with Nerdy co-founder, Colby Sharp), and facilitates the Twitter reading initiative, #bookaday.

(A version of this post originally appeared this week on my Education Week blog, The Book Whisperer.)

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