CONTACT:

Sara Sinek
Scholastic Inc.
ssinek@scholastic.com
(212) 343-6899

Michael Barrett
Scholastic Inc.
mbarrett@scholastic.com
(212) 343-6570

Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge gets kids reading with fun interactive website; free tools for parents include a reading guide, reading timer app, Facebook daily calendar, Google+ chats and more

New York, NY – June 3, 2014 – Just in time for summer vacation, Scholastic unveils free summer reading resources for parents to help enhance their children’s reading and learning skills all summer long at scholastic.com/summer. Available now are: a free summer reading guide for families with age-specific summer booklists and summer reading activities; a free Scholastic Reading Timer app to track kids’ reading minutes; daily tips and a chance to win prizes on the Scholastic Facebook Summer Calendar; and a live Google+ hangout with parenting bloggers Amy Mascot of Teach Mama and Allie McDonald of No Time for Flashcards on June 19. This is all part of the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge – a free, global online summer reading program where children can log their reading minutes to earn rewards and help set a new world record for summer reading.

FREE Summer Reading Tools for Parents:

1. Online summer reading program for kids: Parents can register their children grades K–8 (ages 4–14) for the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge from now until September 5. Kids can log their reading minutes, win prizes and help set a new world record for summer reading. The goal is to beat last year’s summer reading world record of 176,438,473 minutes.
2. Daily tips and prizes for parents: Scholastic Parents Facebook has a summer calendar app with expert tips, articles and activities. Every Friday, parents can enter for the chance to win Friday Freebie prizes including great books for their kids.
3. Chat live with moms on Google+: Join Teach Mama and No Time for Flashcards bloggers for a chat about ways to keep kids reading all summer on Thursday, June 19 at  9 PM ET.
4. Track reading minutes with a mobile app: Parents can monitor their children’s progress and help their children enter reading minutes on-the-go with the free Scholastic Reading Timer app.
5. 2014 summer booklists:  Curated by Scholastic experts, these lists feature more than 700 books for children in Pre-K–8, including this year’s “Reading Under the Stars”–themed list, which showcases books about space, stars and astronomy, as well as spooky stories to read by a campfire.
6. Free book offer: Parents can receive a free Scholastic book by mail when they buy two specially marked packs of EVEREADY® Gold® batteries or EVEREADY® flashlights and redeem the package codes online. Visit eveready.com/reader to learn more. 

“Now more than ever, summer reading is a priority for all kids so that they don’t fall behind and lose core skills,” said Maggie McGuire, VP of Parents & Kids Channels at Scholastic. “Our free summer reading resources are designed to help parents keep the joy in reading, make it easy to find books kids will love and encourage kids to read more by participating in our global campaign to break the world record for summer reading.”

Now in its 8th year, the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge aims to prevent the effects of the “summer slide” – the learning losses that can occur during the summer months. As part of the online reading program, children read to earn digital badges and take the extra “Chapter Challenge” to win a chapter from a favorite book franchise. This year’s summer reading theme is Reading Under the Stars, and is powered by EVEREADY®, the maker of batteries and flashlights, to encourage families to discover new and fun ways to explore reading outside this summer. The 20 U.S. schools with the most reading minutes recorded by September 5 will be featured in the 2015 Scholastic Book of World Records. Bestselling author Gordon Korman (The Hypnotists) and bestselling author-illustrator David Shannon (Bugs in My Hair!) will visit the U.S. middle school and top U.S. elementary school, respectively, with the most minutes logged.

For more information about Scholastic and the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge, please visit the Scholastic media room at mediaroom.scholastic.com.