If athletes didn’t practise their skills for two months, their performance would suffer. The same is true of children who don’t read over the summer. Children and teachers work so hard throughout the school year, only to find that when they start the new school year in September, things have gone backwards. This is referred to as the ‘summer slide.’ The consequences of not reading through the summer holidays are long lasting, often having a powerful influence on reading ability throughout school life and beyond.
Although we have lots of happy Reading Chest customers who we post books to all year round, we are always happy to welcome lots of old and new customers at this time of year who just want books for the school summer holidays.
It is really important that children have access to the right level of books for their ability. If children read books which are too difficult for them, they will use all their energy decoding individual words rather than engaging with the book and enjoying it. By reading the appropriate level of book, children will consolidate skills, feel successful and hopefully read for pleasure!
But – it’s not all about books. Children’s reading skills can be kept going in lots of ‘camouflaged’ reading and learning opportunities. Here’s a few of Reading Chest’s favourites to keep your children reading this summer:
1. Top Trumps – toprumps.com Top Trumps deliver a range of educational benefits through ‘camouflaged learning’. As well as being great fun, playing Top Trumps improves literacy and numeracy skills and builds subject knowledge.
2. Fishing for Sounds – For younger readers, this is great fun! Using a permanent marker, write letters/sounds onto cut out plastic fish or ducks and let them swim in your paddling pool. Scoop them out with a net and use the sounds to play games e.g. make words beginning with the sound ‘th’ or with the sound ‘oo’ in the middle.
3. Get children cooking – Everything involved in cooking is fantastic for children’s learning, from reading the recipe and weighing ingredients, to sharing cakes with friends. This can be made into a more social event with friends by recreating programmes such as ‘Come Dine with Me’ or ‘Master Chef,’ where children have to read and write their own menus too.
4. Listen to audio books – Audio books are a brilliant way to keep children’s interest stories alive. Long car journeys are a great place for a captive audience!
5. Bring out the board games – There never seems to be enough time to play board games during the busy school term. Make the most of chilled summer days with games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Articulate and Boggle which are all great for reading and vocabulary.
