I can’t believe in a few short days both of my children will be out of school for summer. While we are looking forward to more relaxing mornings and some time at the pool, I also recognize that we need to have a plan for how we will keep up academics throughout the summer. As an educator, I have seen the results of summer slide. There have been numerous research reports indicating that elementary-age children’s performance can fall any where from one month to three months during the summer.
While this may seem daunting or overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. Small chunks of time across the summer is all you need. You don’t need to enroll your child in an academic camp or hire a tutor to keep your child’s academic gains from the school year. Less than 30 minutes a day a few times a week can make a huge difference and set your child up for success when they begin the new school year. There are many studies that say simply reading 4-6 books across the summer is all you need to do. (https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/summerslide)
If you want to do a little more, I am sharing our summer plan to give you an idea of what you could do.
Here is what we are planning to do:
Our goal is 4 times a week,
- We will read for 20 minutes or read 3 books together. Check out our Summer Reading Challenge for more motivation.
- For my rising second grader, she will be encouraged to read at least 6 chapter books independently this summer. (This is a goal we set based on her reading rate now and accounting for down time this summer.)
- Both of my kids will get 2-10 minutes of word work depending on what we are doing. This could be a game like Zingo or Boggle or it could be high-frequency word or phonemic awareness game or it could be word sorts.
2 times a week:
- Both kids will write. This could be
- in their journal
- a story
- a letter
- a postcard
- a list
- a book
Check out this post on writing books together: Best Way to Motivate Your Writer
We will track our progress with a simple chart like the one we used when we established my daughter’s homework routine. You can read more about that here: Our System to Get Homework Done.
We will also be completing the Literacy Doc Summer Reading Challenge and we will post our progress on Instagram with the hashtag #literacydocsummerreading and on Facebook. If you follow along, you can see some of the books we are reading for additional inspiration.
If you want more specifics on how to support your reader at home, I recommend checking out the Empowering Readers course. This course is free and full of my favorite tips to share with parents (and what has worked really well for my own kids).
If you are looking for fun games to take on trips or play at home with your child, check out this post:
Our 5 Favorite Literacy Games for Summer
On the Road Again? Make it Educational!
We will be planning many trips to the library and museums this summer to keep my kids busy and learning. If you are thinking about any of these adventures, be sure to check out the following posts:
5 Tips for Successful Library Visits
Favorite Museums, Aquariums, and Zoos
Hope you have a wonderful and safe summer!!
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