Many thanks for the enthusiastic response to this giveaway.
The contest is now closed, and random.org #105 was chosen, notified, and confirmed.
Congratulations, Laura in Illinois!
When I learned about the Target Read With Me program and Target’s overall commitment to education, I was floored.ย Sure, I’ve always been a big fan of Target, but I’m a bigger fan of literacy and education; putting the two together is a serious win-win, and it makes me love the company that much more.
And when they decided to kick off the campaign by giving one lucky teach mama reader his or her very own iPad and a just-for-your family selection of children’s books, valued at over $599? I had to jump on board.
Target is launching the Read With Me program, a campaign designed to get every child reading by third grade so that students can make the important transition from learning to read to reading to learn. And Target’s also pledged to donate $500 million to support education–doubling its support to date–for a total of more than $1 billion dollars. Wow.
So what can you do to support the Target Read With Me Program?ย You can:
- Commit to a regular reading schedule with your kiddos: Before rest time (or nap time) and before bed are great places to start.ย Add some newspaper reading during breakfast (and there’s your non-fiction piece!), and you’re good to go!
Reading aloud with your kids has big pay-offs in the long run.
- Make reading a family event: If everyone sits down after dinner to read together, reading will become an exciting, natural part of the day.ย Read anything–books, magazines, the instructions to a new game–it doesn’t matter.
- Keep a book in your bag: Keeping a book–or two or three–in your purse or diaper bag will give you a few (hopefully more) minutes of sanity when you find yourself stuck at the mechanic’s, in a long line a the grocery store, or waiting in the school pick-up line.
- Talk about what you read: Reading is one thing but talking about the characters, the setting, the events, and the ideas takes it to the next level.ย It’s easier than you think and the payoff is big!
- Hit the library: Make it a weekly ritual to hit the library for new books.ย Choose a different theme each week (animals, games, countries, sports, etc) to mix up your selections, or try out a new library every once in a while if you can.
The library is a super place for finding books on new topics, of different genres, and about new places.
- Take the Pledge: Pledge to read with the children in your life.ย And when you take the Pledge, Target will donate up to 1 million books to children in need. So fab.
- Look for books: Target assembled a great list of Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newberry Award-winners and more, and they even have lists broken down by age group. It’s worth checking out.
- Try out the resources: Word searches, word scrabbles, games, and more will continue the learning for our little ones. (I love these, and I’m totally using these during homework time!)
One of the simplest ways of motivating children to read–at all levels–is to read to them–to read a rich and varied mix of fiction, non-fiction, stories, articles, and poems. Pat Cunningham cites two different studies in “If they don’t read much, how they ever gonna get good?” (The Reading Teacher, September 2005) where students said that what most motivated them to read was their teacher reading to them.
As parents, we can help support our children’s literacy growth every single day by reading aloud to them.ย Not only does reading aloud demonstrate to them how fluent reading should sound, but it is relaxing, it provides great conversation starters, and it is a super excuse for extra cuddling with your kiddos on the couch.
GIVEAWAY: a 16GB Wi-Fi enabled iPad to read books online and a selection of children’s books!
Do you want to win your own 16 GB Wi-Fi enabled iPad and a selection of children’s books (a prize package 
valued up to $599)?
- To enter: Leave a comment here (along with your email address) simply sharing your children’s book OR your favorite time and place to read with your children.
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- For extra entries:ย you can share this post with a friend (just tell me who you shared it with!)ย
- Tweet this: Win an iPad & children’s books from @target by pledging to read to your kiddos @teachmama http://teachmama.com/?p=1017 #ece #kidlit
- Facebook this: I entered to win an iPad and childrens books on teachmama and so can you– http://teachmama.com/?p=1017
- Subscribe: to teachmama via email orย rss
This contest ends on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at midnight ET and is open to US residents only.
This sweepstakes is only open to U.S. residents 18 years or older. A winning commenter will be drawn at random, using Random.org, after the sweepstakes closes on Thursday, Jan. 20 at 12:00am EST. The winner will receive a 16GB Wi-Fi enabled iPad and a selection of childrenโs books, a prize package valued up to $599. After the winner is notified, he or she has 48 hours to respond with their mailing address, phone number and ages of their children, so that Target can ship the prize and select books appropriate for their children. If the winner does not reply in that time frame, he or she forfeits the prize and another winner will be drawn at random. Please note that we cannot ship product to a P.O. Box.
fyi: Target has generously provided me compensation for writing this post and for sharing information about this campaign, but the ideas and opinions expressed here are all my own. Target has also agreed to provide one teach mama reader with the above mentioned prize.
alphabingo: playing with lowercase letters