The Benefits of Summer Reading for Your Child

Encouraging summer reading is a fantastic way to keep your child’s mind active over the summer, promoting a positive summer activity that can be done virtually anywhere at any time.

Not only does it help children maintain their reading skills, it also helps prevent the dreaded summer slide. Known to cause a pronounced dip – or ‘slide’ in children’s reading skills, the summer slide can best be avoided with solid a summer reading program in place.

But what does a summer reading program actually entail? And do they really help children progress faster?

Studies suggest that they do, with children who read more demonstrating better fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Summer reading programs range from simply tracking the number of minutes read per day to specific summer reading lists and even activity sheets, incentive charts, and a skills overview that follows a set curriculum.

1. Summer Reading Beats Summer Slide:

Summer reading may not be a priority for your child, but you should make it a priority as a parent. This is because kids who read throughout the summer beat the summer slide. Summer reading is critical to your child’s ability to retain information learned earlier and develop critical thinking and knowledge skills for the coming school year. Children must read every day to maintain literacy skills and develop new skills.

2. Improves Emotional Intelligence:

Emotional intelligence is essential for your child because it helps them develop, maintain and enhance close relationships and friendships. In addition, they begin to understand people and things around them better, a skill that is important for academic success. Reading also stimulates children’s ability to understand their emotions safely. This skill makes it possible for them to understand feelings, handle adversity, and express emotions.

Reading further helps children to connect better with human experiences than simple observation. According to research, reading allows people to connect better with each other and accept each other’s emotions and thoughts. They also develop critical thinking skills by reading how different characters handle issues.

3. Reading Exercises the Brain:

While many people read for fun and enjoyment, science states that reading is a powerful workout for the brain. It increases intellectual stimulation and provides numerous mental health benefits. In addition, reading involves a complex network of circuits and brain signals: As a child’s reading skills improve, those networks become sophisticated and more robust. Students should therefore read to keep their brains in shape.

Just like people lose body muscles when they don’t exercise, a lack of reading causes a loss of literacy skills. Lack of reading during the summer causes students to lose up to two months of reading development. This process is referred to as summer learning loss or summer slide. Summer reading is not an activity to keep students busy during the vacation. Instead, it is a critical requirement to keep their brain alert and on their educational career track.

4. Broaden their Perspective:

Just like emotional intelligence, your child can improve their perspective of life and human experiences through reading about people with different characters and backgrounds from theirs. For example, reading books with characters of other races, family structures, interests, abilities, and beliefs can develop your child’s sense of inclusivity and cause them to embrace equality and diversity.

Children need to explore diverse reading materials and engage with text about different cultures and personalities. Doing so will improve their perspective on their surroundings and the world.

5. Summer Reading Builds Vocabulary:

A child who reads 20 minutes daily at home will come across approximately 1.8 million words annually. Besides coming across many new words, it is easier to learn vocabulary when reading a book than trying to memorize words from the dictionary since the words make sense within the context the child is reading. It is also easy to use words from a book later in a different context.

The more your child reads during the summer holiday, the more words they will be exposed to and learn. Consistent exposure to new terms, understanding their meaning and seeing the context they are used increases their mental dictionary. Your child will also have more words available in their writing and conversations. Reading more books will help them communicate effectively, allowing them to express their feelings and articulate their thoughts accurately. Indeed, many people attest that reading makes them better writers.

6. Reading Improves Memory:

Reading improves the concentration and memory of both young and older adults. Even though the brain is not a muscle, it still benefits from the frequent workout of reading. The body requires activity to build muscles; the brain requires exercise to strengthen memory. Reading causes humans to formulate a “mental map” of written text. The mental maps help students process words as they read and aid in memory and recall. A regular reading routine helps the brain in cognitive processes that lead to better memory functioning.

7. Reading Enhances Knowledge:

Reading is one of the most significant ways to acquire knowledge. The knowledge that students gain from reading is cumulative and increases exponentially. When your child develops a solid knowledge base during summer, it becomes easy to receive new knowledge and solve complex problems in the upcoming school year. Please encourage your child to read a wide range of materials during the summer break to expand their knowledge in varying subjects.

8. Develops Analytical Thinking Skills:

Are you still wondering if summer reading is beneficial to your child? Consider this! Summer reading improves humans’ analytical skills. Reading mystery novels can cause them to develop problem-solving skills. Reading stories causes students’ minds to keep guessing what will happen next. Your child’s brain subconsciously trains to think smartly and become more analytical by reading more books. You can expect them to benefit from analytical thinking in their academic and personal lives.

9. Reading Facilitates Better Writing:

Reading more helps students to develop better writing skills. Through reading, one learns more vocabulary and how to write better sentences. Not only will your child learn to write academic material, but they will also learn to express their thoughts in writing.

10. Reading Improves Concentration:

One of the most significant challenges for the brain today is processing too much information. Research shows that ability to pay attention has dropped down to as low as eight seconds due to exposure to a lot of visual communication. So many things today, including web images, social media, advertisements, and phones, demand our attention. Thankfully we can regain our ability to concentrate by reading a book.

Your child can’t learn without focus or concentration. It would be best to encourage them to read since reading trains the brain to work and concentrate better. Reading is an activity that requires undivided attention. It would help if you used it to improve your children’s ability to focus in the classroom and beyond.

Below are books to add to your summer library list, organized by kid-favorite topics: the ocean, animals, dinosaurs, bugs, and outer space. You’ll find stories about inspiring scientists, brave kids, fact-filled encyclopedias, folk tales, and books that use these topics to make counting fun.

 

Kids’ Ocean Books That Feel Like a Day at the Beach

These ocean-themed books introduce kids to animated aquatic animals, a groundbreaking scientist, how it feels to try something new, and the story of kids in one South Carolina town who volunteered to help save sea turtles.

Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle, for ages 0 – 3 years

Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews, illustrated by Ian Wallace, for ages 5 – 9 years

Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist by Jess Keating, illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguéns, for ages 4 – 8 years

The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen, for ages 0 – 4 years

Big Book of the Blue by Yuval Zommer, for ages 3 – 5 years

The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen, for ages 4 – 8 years

 

 

How can I make reading part of summer fun?