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What is Summer Slide and how to prevent Summer slide. “Summer Slide” is when children forget skills they learned at school during summer break. This is especially true for students who may have struggled during the school year. I wanted to share a few tips on how to prevent Summer Slide from happening to your child.
Summer Slide – Tip 1:
READ … surprise, surprise reading is the number 1 way to help prevent summer slide. Having your child read as few as 4 – 6 books during the summer can help prevent the slide. Let them pick out a couple new books next time you are shopping, take them to the library, borrow books from family and friends. Access to books is the biggest part of this, make sure your child has access to books and they will be more likely to read them. There are 5 B’s to help increase accessibility:
- Basket: put baskets around the house and fill them with books & magazines
- Bedroom: make sure there are plenty of good books in their room
- Bathroom: yup you read this right, they sometime spend extra time in there so give them reading material
- Back seat: in the car is a great place to keep a few activity books
- Breakfast table: they can read the cereal box or the newspaper
Summer Slide – Tip 2:
Match ability & interests of your child. Find books about things that your child is interested in, so if they like cars find books about cars. This should be fun reading not required reading 🙂 Have your child find books or magazines that look interesting to them. You also want to find books that match their reading ability, to figure out if a book is within their ability use the 5-finger rule (if you have a reluctant reader keep books in the 1-2 finger area):
Summer Slide – Tip 3:
Read aloud – this is something that can help encourage reading for kids of all ages. Read a book with your child where you alternate reading chapters. Not only does this help you connect with your child but you can even pick books that might be more of a 4-5 finger book because you will be there to help with pronunciation and explaining what the word means if needed. Reading aloud is a great option if you have a reluctant reader because they don’t feel as much pressure as they are not reading the whole book themselves.
Summer Slide – Tip 4:
Is your child attached to their tablet or phone? Download books onto there so they can still read, many parents want to have their children unplug during the summer but if this is not something you worry about then use it to your advantage. There are also many reading based games out there that you can download for your child to help make reading fun.
Summer Slide – Tip 5:
Have your child read something every day. This can be as simple as the weather from the newspaper, the TV guide, something from a magazine … anything. Maybe create a reading log and after they read for a set amount of time they get to do something special. Set it up as a contest between friends. See who can read the most in a month, winner picks an activity to do with their friends. Find ways to include their friends and they will be more likely to keep at it, also it helps their friends prevent summer slide as well.
Children want to have fun during the summer. However, that does not mean they have to be a victim of the dreaded “Summer Slide”. If you are going on vacation check out my tips for making traveling a little easier. Comment below if you have any questions or would like help finding some books to prevent “Summer Slide”
Disclaimer: “Usborne Publishing Ltd. (UK) has no connection with these pages and does not sponsor or support their content.”
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