Barbara Wasik, professor and PNC Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education in the College of Education and Human Development, recommends ways that parents and guardians can support children’s literacy over the summer.
Barbara Wasik, professor and PNC Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education, suggests ways that parents and guardians can support summer reading.
Photo by Betsy Manning
School’s out for summer, but this break can be a pivotal time for children to continue learning.
Researchers have identified a phenomenon called summer slide, the loss of students’ academic skills when school is not in session, which is largely due to a lack of reading. A recent study of third to fifth graders showed that on average students lost about 20% of their school-year gains in reading.
Reading especially benefits young children, and having adults in their lives who prioritize reading is crucial to developing frequent readers.
To prevent this summer slide, Barbara Wasik, Fulbright Scholar, professor and PNC Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education in Temple’s College of Education and Human Development, suggests seven ways that parents and guardians can support and encourage kids’ literacy over the summer.
1. Read every day
Develop a routine for reading each day. Find a time that works for your family—after dinner, before bed, on the bus ride home or in the laundromat—and either read to your child or with them.
2. Use resources from the library
Visit your local library either in-person or virtually. Libraries are great resources for summer reading lists, family activities to promote reading and local community activities. Libraries also help identify age-appropriate books to read to children and for children to read independently.
3. Talk about the book
Ask your child questions about the book as you are reading to see if they are comprehending it. If your child is reading independently, ask them questions that invite them to tell you about the book. Also, while reading, explain the meaning of words you think your child may not know. After reading, talk with your child about the book using some of the new words they learned and help connect new information to things they already know.
4. Read aloud as a family
Gather your children of different ages and read a book out loud for all to enjoy. Give your child who reads independently a chance to read aloud too. And ask questions about the book.
5. Consider summer camp
Find a summer camp that includes reading as an activity or encourage the camp you selected to carve out time in the schedule for reading.
6. Select books with your child’s input
They will be more motivated to read a book if they participate in selecting it. The Association for Library Service to Children provides reading lists by grade.
7. Make sure there are books in your home
Explore community resources that offer free books so that you always have books in your house to read. In Philadelphia neighborhoods, there are reading captains who distribute books.
Finding free books is easy when you utilize these reliable resources.
Free books by mail such as Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which mails a free, age-appropriate book every month to children from birth until their 5th birthday, depending on your local zip code availability. Additionally, many states offer localized mail-delivery book programs. For example, in Texas, the Books Beginning at Birth program provides free books to families with children under 4.
Physical book swaps and libraries. Your neighborhood library is the ultimate resource. Many offer zero late fees, children’s story times and free access to thousands of physical books and audiobooks. And through the Little Free Library, you can find small, neighborhood book-sharing boxes where you can take a children’s book for free or leave one you’re finished with.
Free digital libraries and e-books like Free Kids Books, offering a large collection of downloadable and printable children’s books categorized by age, genre and reading level. Another option is the International Children’s Digital Library, which provides free access to thousands of digitized children’s books from all over the world, available in dozens of different languages. And the Open Library run by the Internet Archive allows you to borrow and read classic children’s literature and e-books online for free.
Amazon Kindle and Google Play have dedicated sections for free children’s e-books. On the Amazon store, filter your search results by price ($0.00) to browse best-selling independent reads.
Here are additional resources for free books.
Above all, make sure your child is having fun and wants to read more (or is motivated to read more).