Education Short List

It’s summer! Hopefully that means some long, fun days enjoying time spent with your family. Hopefully in means summer barbeques, swimming, a great vacation (or two!), and watching your kids enjoy just being kids. Hopefully it means helping your children with their reading comprehension.

What?!? Obviously, you don’t know MY kids! My kids won’t go near a book during the summer unless they are tied down and forced to read! My son says summer is his time NOT to worry about reading (which he hates)… and I kind of agree with him! I would never make my kids worry about that sort of stuff during the summer – summer is for fun, not for school work!

As a Special Education teacher, I have heard all of these statements (and more!) when I ask parents to help their children work on their reading and reading comprehension over the summer months. Fortunately, there are many ways parents can help their children improve their reading comprehension skills over the summer without “making” them read a novel. These are just a few of the tips I share with all my parents at the end of the school year – I hope that you’ll consider trying one or two with your own families this summer.

1. WE DON’T JUST READ BOOKS:

Children (and many adults) often believe that reading is only something we do for school and it only happens with books – but reading is a huge part of our everyday lives. Have your child read things to you whenever possible. The back of the cereal box, a recipe while he/she helps you cook, the items on the $1 menu at McDonald’s, street signs, items on your grocery list, etc. Make a game out of it – Ask your child to find all the items on your grocery list with two syllables while you pick out tomatoes. Tell your child the name of the next street exit you are going to take and have them make a funny animal noise when they see it. Anytime your child is reading – no matter what they are reading – is helping to build their comprehension skills.

2. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE BORING TO BE LEARNING:

Unfortunately, I can’t deny that sometimes teachers make reading boring. We assign reading material that students don’t enjoy, we assign so much reading that struggling readers just feel like giving up, or we take what could be an interesting book or article and make students do so much homework relating to it – they grow to hate it. Summer is a great opportunity for parents to help undue some of the damage if this has occurred to your child over the school year. Let your child read the funny pages! Take them to the local library or book store and choose whatever they want to read! Ask a librarian or sales clerk to point you in the direction of the scariest, or coolest, or most popular books of the summer (trust me, they’ll know…and probably have a display just waiting for you)! Don’t cringe if your daughter picks up a book that is all about cliques and makeup – she’s reading! If your son will only read comic books – so what! Its summer! They’re reading! (And guess what, it ALL helps reading comprehension!)

3. BE A ROLE-MODEL:

If you aren’t a reader yourself, this can be a hard one, but think about it. If your child only sees you watching television, playing on the computer, working in the yard, etc. as a way to relax, why would they ever think about picking up a book themselves? We need to model behavior to our children if we want them to do it themselves. Don’t worry…I’m not saying you have to read a novel any time your child is around. Just let them see you reading – anything! Let them know when you ARE reading. If you do like to read, share what you’re reading with them. Let them know when you have reached an exciting or interesting part of your novel. Choose an age-appropriate article from the newspaper and share it with them. Not a reader? No problem. When a bill arrives in the mail or at a restaurant, let them see it. Show them how you have to read it to understand what you are being charged! Reading the sports page? Great! Show them the article and talk to them about what it’s about. Comparing prices at the grocery store? Perfect. Show them how you look at the prices and the amount of food to make your choice. Show them coupons and how you have to read them to figure out what the deal is.

As adults, we read every day. We may not realize it, but reading comprehension skills are an absolute necessity to survive in this world. If our children are struggling with reading comprehension skills we need to make sure that we give them plenty of support and practice in a fun, supportive way. Just because its summer doesn’t mean they can turn off that part of their brain! Help your student continue to develop the skills that will benefit them for the rest of their lives by making reading comprehension a fun part of every summer day!