Reading throughout the summer will also combat the dreaded "summer slump," when students can lose academic skills while they're out of school for summer vacation. In fact, it's estimated that there's an average loss of 22 percent of instructional time each fall for students who haven't maintained their skills.
There's an easy solution, however: studies show that reading just four to six books per summer can help kids maintain skills, prevent a drop in test scores, and be ready for learning come fall.
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Ways to stem the tide of summer reading loss, tips and tricks to keep kids and teens excited about reading, and links to sites that will help:
- PBS Parents provides summer reading resources to help parents get their kids reading
- ReadKiddoRead has book recommendations and reviews for all age ranges, with the goal of making kids readers for life.
- Bookshare reading lists
- Startwithabook gives you books and activities for summer reading and learning.
- Reading Rockets has prepared a beach bag of tips, tricks, and booklists, plus tips on finding a good summer reading program.
- Adlit.org and Teenreads.com offer booklists, author interviews, and book reviews to keep teens connected to books.
- NCTE and ReadWriteThink provide these teaching strategies, professional readings, resources, activities, and tools for continued learning throughout the summer.
- The National Center for Summer Learning offers research and reasons why summer learning programs are key to academic achievement.
- National PTAs Family Reading Experience offers ideas for Reading Fun.
- Great Books for Summer Travel
- Read Brightly.com Summer Reading Challenge and activities