Summer is a wonderful time for relaxation and fun, but it can also lead to a decline in reading skills if not addressed. The Memphis Striving Readers program is here to help you keep your child's literacy skills sharp during the break.
Our guide offers practical strategies to prevent the summer reading slide, ensuring that children continue to grow as readers. Here are some effective tips:
- Daily Reading: Encourage your child to read every day, even if it's just for a short time.
- Visit the Library: Take regular trips to your local library to explore new books and participate in summer reading programs.
- Family Reading Nights: Set aside time for family reading nights where everyone reads together and shares stories.
- Engaging Activities: Incorporate reading into fun activities, such as cooking from a recipe book or reading aloud during road trips.
- Volunteer Opportunities: Get involved with Memphis Striving Readers by volunteering to support literacy initiatives in your community.
By following these tips, you can help your child maintain their reading skills and foster a lifelong love of reading. For more resources and support, connect with Memphis Striving Readers and join our community efforts to promote literacy across Memphis.
Making Summer Reading Stick: Choice, Routine and Talk
The strategies that work best over the summer tend to share three ingredients: children get to choose what they read, reading happens at a predictable time, and someone talks with them about it. Researchers who study the summer slide have long noted that access to books a child actually wants to read matters as much as the amount of time spent reading. A stack of titles picked by the reader is more likely to get finished than a list handed down by an adult.
Let children choose, and count everything
Comics, graphic novels, joke books, sports magazines, video game guides and nonfiction about animals or space all build vocabulary and stamina. If a child rereads a favorite series for the third time, that still counts. Rereading builds fluency, and the confidence it brings often leads to harder books later. A useful rule of thumb for independent reading is the "five finger test." Have your child read a page and hold up a finger for each word they don't know. Zero or one means the book may be easy. Two or three is about right. Four or more suggests reading it together instead.
Anchor reading to the day
Summer schedules are loose, so tie reading to something that already happens, like after lunch, before screen time or at bedtime. Short, regular sessions of 15 to 20 minutes usually beat occasional long ones. Younger children benefit from being read to even after they can read alone, because listening exposes them to words and sentence patterns above their own reading level.
Talk about what they read
Conversation turns reading into thinking. Try open questions such as:
- What surprised you in that chapter?
- Which character would you want as a friend, and why?
- What do you think will happen next?
- Did this remind you of anything in your own life?
For children who struggle, audiobooks paired with the printed text can keep them connected to stories while they practise decoding at their own pace. Writing counts too. Postcards to relatives, a summer journal or a shopping list all reinforce the same skills.
You can find book lists and printable reading logs on our resources page. Families who want extra support can look into the tutoring and reading nights described on our programs page.
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