Harry Potter-themed Summer Reading Challenge announced by Scholastic this year
 

Scholastic launched their Summer Reading Challenge this week, and this year's theme, "A Magical Summer of Reading," will tie in with the 20th anniversary celebration of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone release.

The Summer Reading Challenge is a free, online and mobile-friendly summer reading program where kids can log their summer reading minutes online and earn digital rewards, and adults can access educational resources for kids.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Scholastic <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SummerReading?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#S ummerReading</a> Challenge is now open! Time to start logging those reading minutes! Visit <a href="https://t.co/k6QjmHUUqv">https://t.co/k6QjmHUUqv</a> to learn how your child’s teacher can register them today. <a href="https://t.co/EtNJg0ZKrt">pic.twitter.com/EtNJg0ZKrt</a></p>&mdash; Scholastic (@Scholastic) <a href="https://twitter.com/Scholastic/status/993519580038533120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
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According to research from the Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report™: 6th Edition, 80% of children ages 6–17 agree that summer reading will help them during the school year, yet, depending on age, as many as one in five kids do not read any books at all over the summer. To encourage kids to stay motivated to read all summer break, Scholastic today announced the opening of the 2018 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge™, a free, online and mobile-friendly summer reading program. All summer, kids can track their reading minutes online and in select cities during the month of July be part of the Summer Reading Road Trip, a traveling pair of RVs hosting pop-up reading festivals at book stores and community libraries.

To learn more about the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge and the Scholastic Summer Reading Road Trip visit: www.scholastic.com/summer.

The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge
This year’s Challenge theme, A Magical Summer of Reading, encourages students to join in the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone while tracking their summer reading minutes. Participants can see the Challenge theme come to life with beautiful artwork by Jim Kay from the Harry Potter illustrated series.

Students who are registered for the Challenge by an educator, public librarian, or community literacy partner can:

• Log their reading minutes to earn digital prizes when they complete weekly reading challenges and gain access to 18 reading activities, including games, quizzes, and videos based on the Harry Potter series;
• Access videos featuring popular children’s book authors reading aloud from their titles and illustrators bringing their characters to life;
• Use the new timer feature that acts as a stopwatch to track their personal reading time;
• Monitor their participating school, public library, or community literacy partner organization’s reading progress by using the interactive map.

In addition, the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge site offers free educational resources to educators, public librarians, community literacy partners, and families, including booklists for all ages in both English and Spanish, video content from literacy experts and authors, downloadable activities for group instruction or home use, as well as printable reading pledges, logs, and certificates. This year’s Challenge also features dashboards that allow educators, public librarians, and community literacy partners to track their students’ reading minutes and print both individual and group reading reports.

After the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge closes on September 7th, the school in each U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia with the most minutes read will be named “Best in State,” and the top 10 public libraries and top 10 community partner organizations with the most minutes read will receive an official Scholastic party kit that includes a commemorative plaque, congratulatory banner, and student certificates to celebrate their achievement. In addition, these top sites will be featured in the 2019 Scholastic Book of World Records.