2024 7,000 Hours Reading Challenge for Kids

Download the 24 page printalbe 2024 7,000 Hour Reading Challenge for kids to help you support your children with their reading goals of 20 minutes (or more) of daily reading.

Where did I get 7,000 hours? Well, if you read 20 minutes a day, the total hours read is 7,300 hours! If you miss a few days, no problem; you will still get to 7,000 hours.

2024 7,000 Hours Reading Challenge for Kids

The 7,000 Hours Reading Adventure 24-page printable booklet will help you create a daily reading habit so that your child reads well over 7,000 hours this year.

Inside the printable, you’ll find two different 30-day reading challenge printable coloring pages for kids to track and record their progress. You can customize it for the month you’re in or use it to help motivate your kids any season of 2024, even if it’s not 30 consecutive days. Something is always better than nothing!

COUNT THE TIME, NOT THE BOOKS

I purposely emphasize TIME read and do not count the number of books — and I have a very important reason. Counting the number of books read encourages fake reading and skimming. In other words, it’s NOT about how fast a child reads but that they are reading. Right? Who cares if the child is a slower reader if they are reading?!

Some kids, my oldest included, actually have slower processing and that’s the way their brains work. She gets accommodations at school for time so she can show her intelligence — which is very high. All that to say, please encourage children to not count how many books they’ve read.

OR…JUST READ

That being said, for some kids, tracking time read KILLS the joy of reading. So, for those kids, have them read and don’t keep track of the time exactly. (No timers, here.) These readers can read as long as they want. Sometimes, that might be 45 minutes. Sometimes, that might be 10 minutes. Read every day, plain and simple, without the pressure of a timer or looking at the clock.

Remember, reading books is the ultimate goal. Not books written by a certain author. Not so-called fancy books assigned by school. Not in a competition with anyone else but yourself. Reading, plain and simple, in order make progress as a reader.

COLORING BOOKMARKS WITH READING CHALLENGES

Use the printable bookmarks of reading challenge ideas to inspire your kids to read outside their comfort zone!

These are fun for growing readers who are reading chapter books. They can finally use bookmarks because they won’t necessarily be able to finish their book in one sitting. Fun!

READING PROMPTS ON CRAFT STICKS

Print out the reading prompts and glue them to craft sticks. Have your readers pick one or two to do when they need new motivation or ideas for their daily reading.

As children become proficient readers, they’ll hopefully start to develop confidence and interest in a wide variety of genres and topics. If that is not happening, you might consider starting a book club to help your child read in a new genre or books set in different countries or historical periods. Book clubs can be very motivating! So can my new reading journal for kids.

Free Genre Reading Challenges for Kids

If you want to test the reading challenge waters to expand your genres, you can try a free 12 books in 12 different categories free printable download.

I’ve purposely built-in flexibility to make this easier to achieve. Alternatively, your children can set their own 12-book goal if these categories don’t appeal. Whatever gets them to read and read a variety of kinds of books, that is the goal.

My hope is that it will also help expand the genres your children read. You can use this to find new types of books to read that can increase awareness of the world and develop empathy for others.

First, you can download this free genre graph to keep track of what genres you’re reading. You have my permission to make copies to use in your classrooms and libraries.

My own kids prefer fantasy, but when they move to realistic and historical fiction books, I see how much their worlds expand. Have you noticed that when your kids move to other genres? Stories are one of the best ways to travel the world and walk in another’s shoes.

Maybe you could even do the challenge along with your kids? I think this will be tons of fun! What do you think?

Keep track of your books, either in a reading journal, Bookopolis, or Goodreads. Bookopolis is an online community for young readers where kids can read and review books. Even better, they can track reading goals and discover new books.

Read more about setting goals with kids here.

BOOK LOG ideas here.

Share the image on Pinterest and have fun reading!

Need book ideas for the challenge?

Don’t worry. I have lots of book recommendations (with reviews) for children here on Imagination Soup. In fact, matching kids with good books is my favorite thing to do. (Even to random strangers in the bookstore or library.) I’m weird like that.

Try these links to find good books for your kids. Show them the lists or a selection of books you think they’d like and let them choose. Choice is important to kids!

And don’t miss these book lists: