Reading Challenge / Book Bingo

Twenty-five challenges, shuffled

The card comes loaded with twenty-five reading prompts: a book by a new author, a non-fiction book, a graphic novel, twenty minutes of reading, a book set in another country, a poetry book, one that made you laugh, one a friend recommended, reading outside, a mystery, something from a series.

Every card is shuffled from that list, so a class of thirty gets thirty different arrangements. The centre square is free by default, and ten cards print two to a page.

Why bingo rather than a reading log

Because a log counts books and a bingo card changes which books get picked up.

Children left to themselves read the same kind of thing repeatedly, usually a series, and there is nothing wrong with that except that it is narrow. A square saying "a poetry book" is a nudge with a game attached — and a child who wants the line completed will read the poetry book, which they would not have done if simply told to.

Replace the squares

The list is fully editable and the defaults are a starting point rather than a curriculum.

Write squares for your own shelf, your own class, your own summer. "A book from the library's second floor." "Something Mum read as a child." "A book with a map in the front." Local and specific beats generic every time, because a child recognises that somebody wrote it for them.

Keep at least a third of the squares easy. A card where every square is a stretch gets abandoned in week two.

The free centre

It is not laziness — it makes four of the twelve possible lines reachable with four squares rather than five, which matters at the start when nothing is filled in.

Turn it off for older readers or for a longer challenge, where the extra square is the point.

Ways to run it

A line for a small prize, the full card for a bigger one. That is the usual shape and it works from about age six upwards.

Summer reading challenges are the obvious use, since the six-week gap is where reading progress is lost. Also form-time competitions, book clubs, holiday clubs, and families who want the summer to contain something other than a screen. Two cards to a page means one A4 sheet covers a pair of siblings.

Print a call sheet

The generator can produce one, which is useful if you are running it as an actual game rather than a challenge — and card numbers can be printed so thirty cards do not become anonymous by Wednesday.

Related: the reading log for recording what was read, and the bingo card generator for any other word list.