This week, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s oldest and largest children and families’ literacy nonprofit organization, is celebrating Reading Is Fun Week, which was started in 1979 to mark the start of summer reading. The RIF website provides free resources to help families celebrate Reading Is Fun Week including a day-by-day children’s activity calendar for each day of the week.

Summer’s Just Around the Corner

Summer, huh? Well, I don’t know what’s going on in your school district, but this week is my children’s last real week of school. Next week it’s clean up time, field day, parties and preschool graduation.

Like me you may be in a slight panic thinking, What am I going to do with these kids all summer? Thank goodness there are such things as library summer reading programs, summer camps, visits to parks, zoos, and the rec center, and playgroups with friends.

Lucie will be attending a preschool summer camp three days a week. I have Nathan enrolled in several mini-camps at his school, including a book club and a writing club. He’ll also be learning American Sign Language and the principal (who’s also our town’s mayor) will be taking a group of kids to the state capitol building in Denver for a field trip.

Both kids will be participating in a week-long soccer camp and a career day at school. Plus, I’ve signed them up to help with a community service project that two teachers are supervising.

We’ll be doing some camping as a family, too, and before we know it August 18 – the first day of school – will be here. Then I’ll have two kids in school full time. I’m so exited!

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In a genius move by the Bush Administration, the President’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 eliminates the Inexpensive Book Distribution Program, which is the RIF book distribution program. Unless Congress reinstates funding for this program, RIF would be unable to distribute 16 million books annually to the nation’s youngest and most at-risk children. This would be devastating to the children in your community as well as the 4.6 million children and their families who receive free books and reading encouragement from RIF programs at nearly 20,000 locations throughout the U.S.

Please act now and help RIF build support for reinstating the funding by sending an e-mail to your members of Congress. You can also tell your friends online:
Facebook

• Become a RIF Fan
• Join RIF’s Group: Reinstate RIF’s Funding

MySpace

• Become RIF’s Friend
• Join RIF’s Group: Reinstate RIF’s Funding

YouTube

• Visit RIF’s YouTube Page
• Create and upload a RIF testimonial video

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It must be the start of school, because I’ve never seen so many cool book and reading related activities going on. Here’s a roundup:

• The 40th anniversary of S.E. Hinton‘s The Outsiders: You can join the online book discussion this month at the Barnes & Noble kid lit book club site.
• September 8 is International Literacy Day: International Literacy Day is a timely reminder to the world about the importance of literacy for individuals, families, communities and whole societies. The official celebration includes the awarding of the 2007 UNESCO literacy prizes to laureates from China, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America. RIF (Reading is Fundamental) and Colgate’s Healthy Habits/Healthy Bed: The two organizations have joined forces to get wash, brush and read at bedtime. The website features tips for parents and activities for kids including starring in your own bedtime story. You can customize and create an adventure story online, then print it out for your child to keep. If you have kids who don’t like to brush their teeth, you may want to create a Healthy Habits Nightly Log.
• September 20 is Jumpstart’s Read for the Record: Jumpstart is asking Americans to support early education opportunities by reading The Story of Ferdinand together on September 20, 2007. They’re trying to break the record for the largest shared reading experience ever, which was set by 150,000 people on August 24, 2006 during the inaugural year of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record campaign.

Now what’s on the menu for lunch?

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With Thanksgiving just a few weeks away, I’ll be concentrating on ways to show kids how to give thanks, from baking cookies for good friends, to journaling to preserve family stories. Of course there will be lots of terrific Thanksgiving recipes and books, too.

One way to give thanks is to contribute to a charity. Show your children how you give to charities. Take them with you when you volunteer. Go through your family’s gently used books, toys and clothes and take them to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army. Show the kids how their donations – either time, money or goods – will help other people.

Since I’m a big believer in books, showing children the importance of reading and fostering a love of books, I’m a supporter of RIF (Reading is Fundamental). From a recent RIF email:

With only 5 days to go in our 40th anniversary fundraising challenge, we have raised over $1,700 needed to reach our target by November 3. Our goal remains the same—we want to raise $25,000 by our 40th birthday celebration on Friday. Your donation will match the gifts we’ve already received from two generous corporate partners, bringing the grand total to $100,000!

We have big goals for 2007. We want to put more books in the hands of our nation’s children—free, new, age-appropriate books that they can keep forever. We want to engage more parents in their children’s lives—all parents should have an opportunity to help their child learn to love reading and knowledge so they can succeed in life. We want to train more childcare instructors on best practices to encourage literacy development—with 13 million preschoolers in childcare, this age group needs our attention. We want every child in the United States to experience the joy reading. But we can’t do it alone.

If you’d like to help, go to the RIF website to donate.

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