3 Quick Tips to Get Your Kids School Reading Ready After Summer

Hey Readers,

Well it's getting to that time again, back to school! Although some of you may have already started (like me), others still have 2-3 weeks before you go back (I'm talking about you Michigan!). No matter if you've started yet or not, this is the perfect time to pump up your child's reading readiness for those early weeks of school to propel them into valuable literacy learning throughout the entire year! Whether your summer had more movies and Mickey than books and writing, or if you had your kids on a tight book reading system this summer, these three tips will help your child, not to mention impress your child's teacher!

1. Sight Word Practice

When working on fluency (how quickly, correctly, and with expression your child reads), one of the easier ways to improve this skill is to expand your child's sight word vocabulary. Sight words are basically words that children can read "at first sight." They don't have to take up precious time decoding them, and their energy can be freed up to figure out harder words. A great place to find sight words, and a widely used tool by teachers, are the Fry Words. For the individual list of words, which are arranged by grade level, you can click on the following link Fry Words. You can use these words to:

•  make flash cards to use in the car, before bed, after breakfast, any time!
• play sight word smash (lay 5-10 cards on the ground and ask your child to stomp on or slap one that you call out)
• write them on the mirror (in dry erase marker) for your child to practice when brushing their teeth

As an added help, if you're more into cutting than writing, you can follow this link to print the words and cut them out Printable Flash Cards. Remember, when you're practicing with your child, you're easing them into school again, so keep it fun, start small (10 cards at once), and then add as they learn more! Can you imagine the look on their faces when they have a whole stack of cards that they know!?

2. Comprehension Practice

A way to help your child get their comprehension (how they understand the text) muscles working is to get a little bit more involved in your reading time together. As you're reading a book together (either picture book or chapter book), you can stop every once in a while to ask students comprehension questions. These types of questions can include:

Questions about Summarizing

• What happened on this page?
• Can you tell me where we were in the story before we start? What was happening?
• What problem did the character have?
• What happened first in this story? Then what?
• What happened at the end of the story? What about the middle?

Predictions

• What do you think will happen next?
• What do you think will happen at the end of the story?
• Wow! Look at that picture on the cover! What do you think this story is about?

As an added bonus, you can actually have your child ask questions about the story to quiz you! See if they can "stump you!" Various studies have shown that when our little readers are in charge of asking questions, they actually understand the story better!

3. Text Structure and Concepts of Print

This section not only helps your child to amp up their literacy success and their ability to keep up with classroom book discussions, but if kids know these terms and use them correctly right off the bat, this really gets a "wow" factor from the teacher (I would know ;-) )! During your reading time with your child, you can easily work on these areas with them! Depending on the age of your child, they may have already mastered these areas, but keep in mind, summer is long, and review is essential! Check on the lists below to see how you can enrich your book discussions with your child by mentioning these concepts.

Text Structure (How a story/text is organized and the parts of a story/text)

• Characters (People/animals that are involved in a story)
• Main Character or Protagonist (The person/animal who most of the action happens to)
• Setting (Where/when the story takes place)
• Beginning, Middle, and End or Plot
• Problem and Solution of the story (What goes wrong and how it's fixed)
• Climax (the moment the problem is solved in the story)

Concepts of Print (Skills dealing with the understanding of the physical aspects of a book and basic structure of text in a book)

• The location of the front and back of the book
• The location of the beginning, middle, and end of a story
• The location of the author, title, and illustrator (BIG wow points when kids can use the word "illustrator")
• Understanding what a period, comma, question mark, and exclamation mark are for
• Concept of word (a child can define where a single word is in print)
• Concept of letter (a child can define a single letter within a word)
• Being able to name/point to the first and last letters in a word
• The direction we read text (left to right and then top to bottom)

When practicing these areas with your children always remember to keep it fun and interactive! We want to get them warmed up for school not burn them out before the first bell after all! The best part about these activities, is they can actually be used all year long to help your child become an even better reader! By working with your child at home while her teacher is working with her at school, you're creating a partnership with your school that will truly lead your child to amazing reading success!

Thanks for stopping by and reading, and until next time! :)

Yours in Literacy,

The Reading Specialista