Five strategies can keep children reading through summer months
Students who don’t read over the summer months can lose months of growth in reading skills. Those who keep reading often experience gains.
The more your child reads, the easier reading will be—and the more likely your child is to want to read. Set a goal for your elementary schooler to read at least 30 minutes every day.
You can make reading fun with activities like these:
Read the news together. Give your child the comics to read. Ask which one’s the funniest. Discuss sports, the weather, letters to the editor, travel destinations, etc. If you don’t get a printed newspaper, share articles of interest you find online.
Read aloud together. You read a page of a book, then your child does. Or, you read the narrative and let your child read the dialogue.
Dramatize what you read. Select a simple scene from one of your child’s books. Assign character roles. Discuss what happens first, second, next. Then act it out, adding lots of dialogue.
Promote practical reading. Ask your child to read the recipe while you bake cookies. Involve your child in reading instructions to build or repair something.
Create reading-related jobs. Ask your child to rewrite damaged recipe cards, organize the family bookshelf or put kitchen spices in alphabetical order.
Reprinted with permission from the May 2024 issue of Parents make the difference!® (Elementary School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2024 The Parent Institute®, a division of PaperClip Media, Inc.