How to Avoid the "Summer Slide": 5 Tips for Maintaining Literacy Skills Through the Summer Months

With summer holidays just around the corner, we thought it was time to revisit some of our ideas from a 2018 post about keeping literacy skills up through the summer, even when your kids are busy having fun!

Known as the “summer slide” it’s not uncommon for kids to lose some of the gains they made in reading and writing (ie. literacy) over the summer.  The best way to beat the slide before it starts is to keep up with reading over the summer months, but if you kids are less interested in hitting the books, here are some other fun ideas for keeping them on track: . 

·      Go on a sound hunt!  A great way to get your kids thinking about the sounds in words (an important phonological awareness skill) is to get them trying to break words into parts.  For younger children, try finding things that all start with the same beginning sound (e.g. objects beginning with ‘b’).  For kids who’ve had more practice with identifying the sounds within words, see if they can find things that all have the same ending sounds (e.g. objects ending with ‘n’). 

·      Play the rhyming game.  I like this one because you can get pretty silly about it.  Take turns with your child coming up with words that rhyme with a target (e.g. words that rhyme with ‘cat’).  When you start to run out of real words, see if you can come up with non-sense words that rhyme (e.g. blat)—the sillier the better!  This is a particularly good one to play when you’re in the car!

 ·      Story telling.  Support your kids in practicing the narrative (ie. story telling) skills they need for writing by practicing re-telling events from their day in sequence.  Encourage them to use words such as “before”, “next”, “then” to help their listener know where they are within their story.

 ·      Word finding challenge!  Challenge your kids to find as many signs and other forms of text when you’re out and about.  Make it fun- first one to read 10 signs wins!

 ·      Make books fun!  This one is as simple as it sounds. Try to read to your kids at least once every day.  Make the stories fun by incorporating silly voices, talking about the pictures and having your kids predict what they think might come next. Picking books with a summer or vacation theme from the library can be a good way to tie in with the experiences they’re having.

Remember, reading should be fun!  All kids need support in learning to read and write, but if you feel that your little one is having more difficulty than they should, an assessment of phonological awareness or higher-level literacy skills can be a good way to figure out where things are breaking down.  Contact us for more information about literacy assessments.