The summer slide is a real thing. I’ve seen it for years and years and teachers are always wondering how they can prevent it. If your school or district is lucky enough to have summer school, then signing every child you can up for that is wonderful. If you don’t, then we need to give the job to the parents. While it’s important for students to enjoy their summer, not reading at all can be detrimental to their reading progress. Here’s one way I’m going to try to encourage reading over the summer.
For years my school has provided a summer school option for students just at or below grade level. And for years, I’ve signed up as many kids as I can. It was a fun learning environment that included field trips, breakfast and lunch, and slower-paced learning activities. It was a fabulous resource that we had. This year, however, we don’t have it so we are trying to come up with ideas that parents can do with their children at home.
Essentially, we’re putting the work on the parents. While that’s fine and they should be responsible for it, they often don’t know what to do. So one thing I’m planning on doing is encouraging my families to continue their nightly family read alouds.
Family Read Alouds
During the school year every night, my students bring home one family read aloud book. This is a picture book in English or Spanish that is typically above their individual reading level. It’s for a grown-up to read TO them. I typically start this at the beginning of the year as a way to get a reading routine in place.
Each day, when the students do their homework bags, their job is to choose a new family read aloud book and return the one they had the day before. Around my room, I have bins for these books and each child goes to their bin to get a new book and return the old one. These books include any picture book that I have that is not a fit for my leveled library and ones that encourage good discussion about different topics.
Along with that letter, we include an information sheet with additional ways they can talk about books and questions to ask their child, while also including a bookmark with similar questions and discussion points.
Encouraging Summer Reading
