This Game is Never Over!
Public schools in the U.S., traditionally close for the summer, with final bus runs taking chattering children home, excited to be outside the school game for a few months. Sadly, this signals the first day of a troubling “Summer Slide,” the downward path for many children who instead of continuing to move along in their personal literacy development, stop reading and then regress during summer. This slide comes simply from the lack of daily, relaxed, self-directed reading that fuels proficiency growth during school.?
Like every other fun thing we do or wish to do better, reading capability only stays strong as regular practice supports. We play the way we practice, and very few games, including wonder-filled literacy, get better by luck.?
During summer break, youngsters can set their own reading times, just?as long or as short as they might wish. In a few simple ways, adults can help children to continue to grow in reading?during the summer.?
To continue reading and growing proficiency during summer break, children need:?
Books! Obvious? Yes! However, many children live in Book Deserts (click that and zoom in to see your very own community). They are likely to suffer from a lack of available and suitable reading material (see red line in above graphic). The premier book resource is a public library, but bookmobiles, online reading, older neighbor children’s shelves, book boxes stashed in attics, yard sales and Little Free Libraries also help.?
Time! Kids need unstructured time for devouring their choices from a changing pile of books, to read just for fun and enjoyment. That time can be nicely inserted anywhere. When crafting a summer schedule for children, parents will do well to model reading and sharing their own books while encouraging their kids to invest lots of free time each day for relaxed reading.?
A Culture of Book Reading! Excellent athletes do not stop working out when sports seasons are over. They continue to engage, working on their strengths and weaknesses in the sports they love, most often with encouraging friends and family. Summer reading can be like that for kids. Relaxed excursions into reading can continue through the summer if books are borrowed from a welcoming public or school library. In this way, the dreaded Summer Sliding can be turned into Summer Soaring. Reading is for fun, not for competition or to please a teacher or someone else. The benefits of enjoying a book are accrued not from arduous work, but from relaxed, joyful engagement with rich stories and amazing information.?
Given fabulous, eye-opening, books and free time, children will return to school the next year in full stride, glowing from time outdoors and excited to share all of their vacation activities, along with books they read over the summer. The reading game never ends. Every child can become a lifelong winner, exploring themselves, the world, and life through daily embraces of terrific books, expanding and growing throughout their life’s reading game.?
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