You’re living in the car. Between soccer practice, baseball games, swim meets, and whatever tournament is happening this weekend, you’ve practically set up camp in the parking lot. Your trunk is full of snack bags, water bottles, and gear. Your calendar looks like a color-coded nightmare. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re wondering: When exactly is my child supposed to read?
If you’re a sports parent, you know this feeling. The season hits, and suddenly, everything else, including reading, takes a backseat to the game schedule. But here’s the thing: Your young athlete’s brain needs reading just as much as their body needs practice. The good news? You don’t have to choose between developing a strong reader and supporting your child’s athletic passions. You just need a few smart strategies that fit your crazy-busy sports life.
Why Reading Matters for Young Athletes
Before we dive into the how, let’s talk about the why. Your child’s reading skills don’t go on vacation during sports season. In fact, research shows that consistent reading practice, even just fifteen minutes a day, makes a huge difference in vocabulary growth and comprehension skills.
Think about it this way: If your child took three months off from their sport, they’d lose conditioning and skills. The same thing happens with reading. Kids who stop reading during busy seasons often slide backward. They forget sight words. Their fluency slows down. Their comprehension suffers.
But the reverse is also true. Kids who keep reading during sports seasons maintain their skills and often improve. They encounter new words. They practice decoding. They build the stamina needed for longer texts. And bonus: Reading helps young athletes in unexpected ways. It improves focus, builds mental stamina, and teaches kids to follow complex instructions, all skills that transfer to the field or court.
Your young athlete needs reading time just like they need practice time. The trick is finding ways to make it happen without adding more stress to your already packed schedule.
Six Quick Tips for Sports Parents
Here are six practical strategies that actually work for real families with real schedules. No guilt trips. No complicated systems. Just simple ways to keep literacy alive during the busiest seasons.
1. Turn Car Time Into Reading Time
You’re already spending hours in the car. Why not make some of that time count for reading? Keep a bin of books in the backseat. Choose short books or chapter books that your child can pick up and put down easily.
For younger readers, audiobooks paired with physical books work beautifully. Your child can follow along in the book while listening to the narration. This builds fluency and helps them connect spoken words with printed text. For older readers, audiobooks alone are great for long drives to away games.
The key is making books as accessible as sports equipment. If the soccer ball is always in the car, the books should be too. Ten minutes here and there adds up. A fifteen-minute drive to practice becomes a reading opportunity instead of dead time.
2. Read About Sports
Want to know the fastest way to get a sports-obsessed kid to read? Give them books about sports. Biographies of their favorite athletes. Stories about underdog teams. Books that explain the science behind their sport. Graphic novels about kids who play their game.
When reading connects to something your child already loves, it stops feeling like homework and starts feeling like fun. Your soccer player might devour a book about Megan Rapinoe. Your swimmer might love learning about Michael Phelps. Your basketball fan might get hooked on a series about kids who play pickup games.
Sports books build reading skills while feeding your child’s existing interests. And here’s a secret: All reading counts. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “classic” or a graphic novel about skateboarding. If your child is decoding words and comprehending text, they’re building literacy skills.
3. Create a Ten-Minute Bedtime Rule
Games run late. Practice goes long. Homework takes forever. By bedtime, everyone is exhausted. But here’s your non-negotiable: Ten minutes of reading before lights out. Not negotiable. Not optional. Just part of the routine, like brushing teeth.
Ten minutes isn’t much. Your child can read independently, or you can read aloud to them while they wind down. Even on the longest, most exhausting days, ten minutes is doable. And those ten minutes every single night add up to more than sixty hours of reading practice over a year.
Make it easy by keeping books on the nightstand. Let your child choose what they read. Skip the questions and discussions if everyone is too tired. Just read. That consistency protects your child’s reading skills even during the craziest seasons.
4. Use Waiting Time Wisely
Sports parents spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for practice to end, waiting between games at tournaments, waiting in the parking lot because they arrived early. All that waiting time is reading time in disguise.
Pack a book in your child’s sports bag along with their water bottle and snacks. When they’re sitting on the bench, waiting for their turn, or cooling down after a game, they can read. Even five minutes here and there keeps their brain engaged with text.
For younger readers, bring along decodable books they can practice independently. For older kids, let them choose books they actually want to read. The goal isn’t to assign reading as a chore. It’s to fill empty time with something beneficial instead of just scrolling on a phone.
5. Make Reading Part of Team Time
Here’s an idea that works surprisingly well: Start a team book club. Get a few families on board. Choose a book everyone can read over the season. Maybe it’s about your sport. Maybe it’s just a fun story kids will love. Set a goal to finish it by the end of the season.
Talk about the book during car pools. Discuss favorite parts while you’re waiting at practice. Make it social. When reading becomes something the team does together, kids who might resist reading at home suddenly get interested. They don’t want to be left out of the conversation.
This strategy works especially well with teams that travel together for tournaments. Instead of everyone staring at screens in hotel lobbies, kids can gather and talk about books. It builds team bonding while keeping literacy skills sharp.
6. Lower the Bar When You Need To
Some weeks are just survival mode. Three games, two practices, a team dinner, and a school project all happen in five days. You’re running on fumes. Your child is exhausted. Reading feels like one more impossible thing on an already impossible list.
Here’s your permission: It’s okay to lower the bar. If your usual routine is twenty minutes of reading, make it ten. If you normally read chapter books, switch to shorter picture books or graphic novels for now. If your child usually reads independently, read aloud to them instead so they can rest.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s consistency. Some reading is always better than no reading. Even five minutes keeps your child’s brain engaged with text. Even one book a week is better than nothing. Give yourself grace. Give your child grace. Do what you can with what you have.
What Happens When Reading Takes a Backseat
Let’s be honest about what happens when reading stops completely during sports season. Kids lose ground. They forget sight words they knew before. Their reading speed slows down. Their comprehension suffers. And here’s the tough part: It takes time to get those skills back.
Research shows that students can lose significant reading progress during extended breaks from reading practice. The summer slide is real, and the sports season slide is just as real for busy young athletes. Three months without consistent reading can mean your child starts the next season or school year behind where they were.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Small, consistent efforts protect your child’s reading skills. You’re not trying to make huge gains during sports season. You’re just trying to maintain what they’ve already built. And that’s completely achievable with these simple strategies.
Build Strong Athletes and Strong Readers
Your child can be a great athlete and a strong reader. These goals don’t compete with each other. They support each other. Reading builds focus and mental stamina. Sports teach discipline and time management. Both require practice. Both get better with consistency.
The key is rejecting the idea that you have to choose. You don’t. You just have to be creative about finding pockets of time and making reading accessible during your busiest seasons.
Keep books in the car. Make bedtime reading non-negotiable. Use waiting time wisely. Choose books about sports. Start a team book club. Lower the bar when you need to. These six strategies won’t add hours to your day. They just help you use the time you already have more effectively.
Your young athlete deserves the chance to develop all their potential, on the field and on the page. With a little planning and a lot of flexibility, you can keep literacy alive even during the craziest sports seasons.
Ready to give your young athlete reading practice that fits your busy schedule? The Reading.com app offers short, effective lessons in systematic phonics, fluency, and comprehension that work perfectly for families on the go. Just fifteen minutes a day builds strong reading skills that last. Start your free 7-day trial today and help your child succeed in sports and reading.
