The following article are 10 simple strategies to help your children keep and continue on with the academic skills, that they’ve learned during the school year. Support them as they read, give them material that is motivating ,and some of it should be easy, which will help them enjoy books and feel pleasure ,not pressure from reading. The summer should be a relaxed time where their love of learning can grow.
As a parent, you play a critical role in your child’s education during the summer , especially if your child has dyslexia. Without your help, kids are more likely to forget what they learned last year, while they were at school. A study from Johns Hopkins University estimates that summer loss for all students equals about a month of academic learning and that children with learning difficulties, need even more reinforcement.
Help them remember what they learned in school. That way they can start next year caught up or ahead of the other students in their class. Bring out their natural love of learning. And encourage them to read for pleasure without the pressure they experience in the classroom.
Here are some summer strategies to help your child with dyslexia remember what they learned in school and see that reading can be useful and enjoyable:
- Give them material that motivates them to read, even though they might find it hard to do. Try comic books, directions for interesting projects, and mystery stories. Let them decide what they want to read.
- Support them as they read. Read their book aloud to them, help them decode, and make it easy for them to get the meaning. Even if a question is asked again and again, act happy that they asked. Show them that reading is a way to find out what they need to know, or even to entertain themselves.
- Give them easy reading. Summer is supposed to be relaxed. Let them succeed and get absorbed in the book.
- When you read with them, make it your goal to enjoy the book together. You don’t have to make them read perfectly! Avoid too much correction. In school next year, the teacher will help them improve their skills further.
- When you are working on something that is difficult, demonstrate the discipline and patience that you want them to show while learning to read. Teach them explicitly the value of working hard to do something challenging.
- Accommodate their dyslexia. For example, if they have to read aloud in public, have them memorize their passage ahead of time. If you give them a recipe for cooking for example (or any project involving written directions), be sure that it is at their reading level and that the print is large enough for them.
- Use technology. Equip your computer with software that reads aloud. Let them load books into their electronic devices and listen to them at the same time as they read the printed book in their hands.
- Use recorded books. Use Learning Ally or audiobooks. Tales2Go is an audio book app that streams thousands of kid’s books.
- Be a model of reading. Bring books to the beach and read them. If you are traveling, find a book for the whole family to read and discuss.
- Have reading material conveniently available. You might carry small children’s books and magazines with you and have them ready when the opportunity arises.
The summer months are important to your child’s academic development. They need to be reminded of what they learned during the school year so that they remember it when they return in September.
