MetroFamily Magazine / May 2012 / 7 Fun Tips to Prevent Summer Slide

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7 Fun Tips to Prevent Summer Slide

The “summer slide” is the term given to the regression students experience after they spend a summer break without reading. While research shows that the phenomenon disproportionately affects low-income households, any child who spends months without reading is likely to experience summer loss of reading skills.

Planning activities that include reading and writing not only battles the summer slide, but also makes for some fun summer adventures. The editors at Highlights offer the following suggestions for keeping kids' imaginations engaged with reading and writing during their long summer break:

1. Create theme days centered on your child’s favorite book. Each family member can dress up like a character. Then, come up with activities, go on a field trip, and eat food related to the book.
2. At the end of a trip or event, involve kids in creating a family album. Include not only photos, but captions, anecdotes from family members, as well as drawings, ticket stubs and other mementos.
3. Sign the Highlights “Pledge to Read”  and let your children pick how many books and magazines they plan to read this summer. Take advantage of your local library’s summer reading program. The best predictor of summer loss or summer gain is whether or not a child reads during the summer.  Download the reading log to keep track of books, and celebrate with a certificate from Highlights.
4. Who doesn't love to get mail? Encourage your children is send vacation post cards to family and friends with notes on the back they write themselves.
5.  Encourage young children to read aloud to family pets.
6. Write stories, round-robin style. Start your children off with a sentence or two to set the stage, then pass the paper around to each member of the family, who also adds a sentence or two. The finished story is sure to be something unexpected and hilariously funny.  Don't forget to illustrate.
7. Encourage your young thespians. Let them put on a show for the family, acting out favorite scenes from favorite books.

About Highlights:
Devoted to “Fun with a Purpose,” family media brand Highlights for Children, Inc. (http://www.highlights.com/) has helped children become their best selves for generations. Highlights magazines are the best-read children’s magazines in North America, and total more than 250 million impressions each year.