Reading Can Help Prevent the Summer Slide in Children’s Learning

Children get a much-needed break from the school year during the summer, but it’s important to ensure that the learning doesn’t stop when they are away from the classroom for months.

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Reading Rockets has provided a guide on why summer reading is important for young children. It provides some ideas on how to make the summer a fun time for reading, writing, exploring, creating, and other activities.

Some children will likely be in community programs or camps for part of the day during summer, but other children will have less structure. Therefore, it is important to keep children’s minds engaged.

Reading Rockets notes that enrichment during the summer - whether it’s reading, writing, or hands-on activities - has numerous benefits. These include:

• Preventing the summer slide: If learning slows down over the summer break, children can lose some of the academic gains they made during the school year. This is especially true of children who are already struggling academically. Reading and writing over the summer can help them to practice their skills.

• Build vocabulary and comprehension: Reading comprehension can be improved by reading regularly. Summer reading exposes a child to new vocabulary, and reading widely across different genres gives them the opportunity to wrestle with more challenging books.

• Strengthen writing skills: Children should also keep writing during the summer, even if it’s low-stakes writing - a grocery list, a nature journal, or postcards to family members.

• Learn new things and build background knowledge: Summer reading, writing, and hands-on learning are great ways for children to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world. Encourage children to try a new topic or genre.

To learn more, check out Reading Rockets’ article on the importance of summer learning.