As school lets out and pupils anticipate the warm days of summer, youngsters are encouraged to continue their classroom reading, because those who don’t lose three months of what’s gained during the school year.
Bonnie White, director at Danville’s Thomas Beaver Free Library, said there have been many studies that show children who participate in summer programs do much better in school.
“It keeps their brain active,” she said. “They retain what they learned the previous school year, and the new class they’re entering, the teachers don’t have to do as much reteaching.”
Kim King, youth services coordinator and assistant director at the Priestley-Forsyth Memorial Library in Northumberland, recommended students read the “great eight,” or eight books a summer, to help maintain the same level at which they were reading at the end of school.
If not, they could be affected by the “summer slide.”
“It’s where if children aren’t exposed to reading or don’t read, they actually lose three months of what they’ve gained during the school year,” King said. “Come September, teachers are reteaching skills they already gained during the school year. They’re backpedaling.”
Many area libraries and some school districts are offering summer reading programs to children of all ages to help continue the habit or reading books and other materials.
From her own experience, Melissa Herb, a second-grade teacher at the Kelly Elementary School in the Lewisburg Area School District, said she’s seen students who don’t read over the summer lose about two levels in their reading ability, which they must regain over the first marking period.
“If they continue to read over the summer, they will stay in practice of using their strategies and therefore either maintain their current level of reading or expand on their reading and raise their level of reading,” Herb said through e-mail. “Maintaining their level also means that the students are also working on their comprehension of what they are reading.”
But it doesn’t need to be just books, officials said. Magazines, brochures, newspapers — literally anything with words — can be used to strengthen reading skills.
“It can be anything at all,” said Penny Gaugler, a reading specialist in the Danville Area School District. “Anything a child will read.”
She even suggested making games for children out of reading by using sidewalk chalk to practice spelling and writing. Learning the smaller words like “and” and “the” is a start.
But it’s not only the act of reading that’s important. Comprehension is key as well.
“They could read a hundred books over the summer, but the books will not mean anything if they can’t understand what they are reading,” Herb said. “Once the book is read, or after a reading, the parents should ask the students about what they have just read to make sure that their child is understanding. Just because the child can read the words does not mean that they understand what they are reading. Comprehension is just as important as reading the words.”
It’s not uncommon, though, that reading isn’t a priority for children during the warm, sunny days. But area officials said there are ways to convince children to read anyway.
Gaugler said anything that a family has going on involves some sort of reading, and parents should include children in those tasks.
“If you’re doing anything at all, like a trip,” she said, “even the most reluctant reader will enjoy helping prepare. A lot of children are computer-savvy, have them do a search (online), or read a book about the place or things they’re going to go through.”
In previous years, officials said attendance at summer programs was great, and attendance is up at some programs that already are under way.
King said about 40 children arrived each day during the first week of the program at the library, and White said on their first days, the library was filled with children looking for books.
“We are inundated with children who are anxious to check out books and read,” she said. “They are so happy.”
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