Summer Literacy Tips
Did you know that there are many things you can do during the summer to teach kids literacy skills?
Here are some ideas you can use at home to help children engage with literacy during the summer:
- Encourage the children in your life to read every day! Reading is still the number one thing you can do from home to help your child keep their literacy skills in the summer. Remember that kids will want to read the most when the motivation comes from them, which means picking a book or topic that they find interesting.
- Have a family book club! You can all read the same book, or read different books and then talk about what you liked or didn't like about them together. You can also do book clubs as a group of friends, an extended family, or a campsite! Here is a link to information about the NLPL's Bookclub Kits for children.
- Do a scavenger hunt! Making a list, reading it, and checking off items, are all literacy skills! Do it outdoors to tie in some physical literacy and spend time in nature!
- Learn a song together, whether to sing around a campfire, or in your living room! Song lyrics are a great literacy tool and are fun to sing together. Remember that singing is one of the 5 early literacy practices that help get kids ready to learn to read.
- Make art! Drawing, painting, building, and creating are all fun for kids to do and can be done together! The public library has tons of non fiction books on making, so drop by and see what you're interested in!
- Write your own story! Writing is a great literacy skill to practice- you can have your child write their own story, or you can help them write it down.
- Bake or cook something together! Reading a recipe and measuring ingredients helps you practice reading, math, and numeracy!
Find more information on the summer slide, various kinds of literacy, and more ideas here.
