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Summer reading can increase your child’s literacy skills.
But literacy experts say things like the traditional focus on reading books from a lengthy list shouldn’t be students’ sole goal when school is out.
Instead, they say, parents should also be reinforcing other language skills that bolster literacy.
Doing so doesn’t need to be complicated. For example, by simply fostering a daily habit of reading, parents can boost their children’s literacy skills without fretting over whether they should be speeding through dozens of books between school years, according to experts who work on child literacy outside classrooms.
The backdrop is concerning data about Indiana students’ fundamental reading skills. Results from last year’s IREAD-3 test showed that 18.1% of Indiana’s third graders — nearly 15,000 of them — lacked foundational reading skills.
Worries about students’ literacy levels, as well as a philosophical shift in how schools nationwide teach children to read, also led Indiana last year to require schools to use an approach known as the science of reading. This approach focuses on comprehension, phonics, and other elements to ensure children’s literary skills are up to par.
For children who are in the K-12 system, daily reading habits for a set period of time can be important. But for children too young for summer reading lists — or for school itself — there’s something else very simple parents can do: read to them.
“Oral language is at the center of literacy,” said Karen Betz, an assistant professor of literacy and coordinator of reading science programs at Marian University. “Especially from a young age, kids’ brains are wired to pick up words in speech, but they aren’t necessarily wired for picking up words through reading.”
Why boosting literacy during the summer is challenging
Cat Cardwell, the community and family program director at the nonprofit Indy Reads, knows that reading to children might be more straightforward for some parents than others, for various reasons.
For example, the group highlighted data from the National Bureau of Economic Research that children with parents who have low literacy levels are 72% more likely to have low literacy levels themselves. But Indy Reads offers summer programming meant for adults as well as kids.
Some of these programs allow parents and their kids to read together, though not necessarily the same books. And once a week, parents and kids can come and talk to Indy Reads about a book they recently read, why they liked it, and what it was about, said Cardwell.
Cardwell explained that one of the biggest challenges of reading during the summer is that kids (and adult learners) don’t have people or mechanisms handy to enforce their reading comprehension. On summer break, there’s no teacher, no classroom, and therefore no activities meant to encourage reading comprehension and students’ literacy skills.
The kids can also complete worksheets to write a review of their book, but it is not mandatory.
“This is meant to build reading comprehension. But the informal conversations are the larger goal for us,” she said. (Kids can also earn a prize if they participate in this activity every week.)
And during summer Sunday afternoons, Indy Reads also allows kids to give show-and-tell style presentations about a book they’ve read, sharing why they would recommend it to other students.
Getting access to books beyond libraries can be another challenge over summer, since new books can be expensive, Cardwell noted. So Indy Reads tries to make books available to kids through multiple access points. Outside the organization’s bookstore, there’s a cart with free books. Inside the store, there’s a “pay what you can afford section.”
“You can even pay a penny for a book if that’s all you can afford,” she said.
‘Show them that reading is valuable’
Parents of pre-kindergarten kids, or those who struggle with literacy, should read aloud with their children and point to the words on the page, in order to emphasize the link between letters on the page and sounds.
But for children who are in kindergarten or older, adults should work on creating a daily routine.
“We encourage establishing a daily habit of reading 20 minutes a day,” said Devery North, Program Specialist focusing on kids ages 6-12 at the Indianapolis Public Library, which has an annual summer reading program.
Recognizing that the amount of time spent reading is more important than the number of books read, the library has changed its annual summer reading program to encourage reading 20 minutes a day.
“If the kids read every day over the course of June and July, they’ll reach 20 hours by the end of our program,” said the library’s Devery North, a program specialist who focuses on kids ages 6-12.
Prior to 2020, the library’s summer reading program used to be points-based. If a child read more books, that earned the child more points. But now the aim of the program is to track how many hours participants spend with a book — and it doesn’t have to be difficult books either. Audio books, comic books, magazines, and newspapers now count towards the daily reading goals. And like at Indy Reads, kids can earn prizes for their reading accomplishments.
“The program is meant to encourage kids to read on their level, not reading a bigger, harder book just to earn points,” said North. “If a book is more accessible to them and interesting to them, then kids are more likely to read and develop daily reading habits.”
So if a child likes Minecraft, for example, the parents shouldn’t be afraid to step inside the library and ask for books on Minecraft. And if the parents stick around and model reading for the child, so much the better
“Come to the library and read or read to your kid to show them that reading is valuable,” said North.
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