For Pike Parents

Summer Reading

Summer is the perfect time to explore books with your child and to instill in him or her the habit of reading for fun. Summer reading should foster reading for enjoyment. Summer is fun, and so should summer reading be.

Remember the concepts of reading to, reading with, and reading by. When reading to your child, select anything that interests either of you. When reading with your child, make sure it is on your child’s independent or instructional reading level. When your child is reading alone, make sure the selection is on an independent level. All of these are important and contribute to your child’s literary growth, while ensuring that the experiences remain pleasurable.

It is important to keep reading to your child. If you read to your children often, you will create a sense of enjoyment and wonder about language and knowledge. You may want to keep a simple, summer reading journal with your young child— title, author, and a sentence or two about the book. Your child may want to share the list in the fall when returning to school.

Try to take turns reading orally. You can model good reading by reading with expression and by stopping at commas and at periods. You may want to ask your child a few questions after reading together, such as: What did we learn today that we did not know yesterday?  Are you wondering about anything? What has happened so far? Also share your own thinking: Here’s what I realized….This makes me think about the time when we….I really liked this illustration because….Keep it light, and keep it fun.

When your child reads alone, he or she should be reading books that are enjoyable and that are on an independent reading level. It is a good idea to let your child help pick out books to read. He or she might have read an engaging book during the school year; if so, try to find more by that author. Perhaps there is a book in a series that he or she enjoyed. Books in series are great summer reading books and provide a nearly endless supply of titles. You can make a special trip to the library with your child before you embark on a family trip. Or wrap up a book as a special present to give to your child while you are on your trip.

Remember that reading over the summer should be a light-hearted and enjoyable pursuit. Include non-fiction books such as books about animals, cooking, and crafts. Children like to read books that relate to what they are doing—books about places they are visiting, books about sports or sports personalities, and books about seashells and the beach. There are many fine magazines for children to read. Amazon.com has a list by age and popularity that you can use as a resource. See the link below.

You can help by thinking about what your child likes and selecting books and magazines that are appropriate. Be mindful of reading levels that are often on the back of books. It is much better for a child to be reading books that may seem easy, rather than reading books that are too difficult. The latter would send a message that reading is hard work.

You might want to designate a time during the day just for reading, and a time once a week to go to the library or bookstore. You can start by having your child read, or by your reading to or with your child for a short amount of time (15 minutes), and gradually increasing by five minutes each week.

Our Pike librarians, Fran Mellin and Linda Griset, are gathering recommended titles for our students to read over the summer, which will include suggestions from Lower School students. During the last full week of classes, your child will be bringing home this “Summer Reads” booklet. Please keep an eye out for it.
Check with your local libraries for information on their summer reading programs. The theme this summer is "Wild Reads at Your Library."  Many public libraries are hosting activities like traveling exhibits from the Museum of Science, animal tracking workshops, special story times, crafts and plays, and visits from dog mushing teams.

The links below are resources for you as well as links for your child to enjoy over the summer. I wish you a happy summer filled with good times and good reading.

-Susan Hauptman



For Parents About Summer Reading

This site is a list of lists on the Web that are about summer reading with many book lists and tips for parents.
http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr244.shtml

This is an amazing site that gives suggested book titles and authors by grade for summer reading and archives lists from the past few years as well. This is definitely worth your time.
http://www.groton.k12.ct.us/familyLinks/summer.html


Nice tips for summer reading by PBS. There are different articles for different ages.
http://www.pbs.org/parents/readinglanguage/articles/sumreading/main.html

This one from Reading Rockets has good summer reading tips for parents.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/36

What Can Families Do to Keep Children Reading During the Summer? This one has good suggestions from Reading is Fundamental.
http://www.rif.org/educators/articles/what_can_families_do.mspx

This one is from Canada with good links to more articles about reading.
http://www.cdli.ca/CITE/summer_reading_7.htm


Here is the Amazon list of magazines for children.
http://www.amazon.com/ChildrensMagazinesSubscriptions/b?ie=UTF8&node=602322



Fun Summer Reading on the Web for Students

This is a nice site for your child who already reads (Grade 2 and up). It is filled with games, recipes, jokes, science experiments, and many other motivating things to read and do.
http://www.funology.com/

This site has many funny poems for children to read and links to places where they can write poems as well.
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/

This is a wonderful site for children who read (Grade 2 and up) and like animals and nature.
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/