Professional Development and Education Consultant
Happy Spring!
As we start to think about spring, we also need to consider the summer reading loss. Many student experience a loss with their reading skills during the summer months. Here is my article from Illinois Reading Council Journal, Spring 2017, Vol. 45 No.2, pp. 29-33. This article describes how a local volunteer group – Friends of Andersonville – developed a summer reading program with local business sponsorship.
Reading aloud to children builds a child’s vocabulary, background knowledge, and phonological awareness. Research has shown that reading to and with a student has these benefits, it’s also fun. So find some wonderful books and start reading to children as early possible. And continue the practice everyday for 10 to 15 minutes. Hart and Risley’s landmark study (1995) states that children who have been read to consistently will enter school with higher listening and speaking vocabularies. Read alouds between an adult/caretaker should and needs to happen especially during the summer months. Look for my article coming soon about “Beer for Books.”
