Literacy experts say the traditional focus on reading books from a lengthy list shouldn’t be students’ sole goal when school is out, according to Chalkbeat Indiana.
Instead, they say, parents should also be reinforcing other language skills that bolster literacy.
By simply fostering a daily habit of reading, parents can boost their children’s literacy skills without fretting over whether they should be speeding through dozens of books between school years, according to experts who work on child literacy outside classrooms.
The backdrop is concerning data about Indiana students’ fundamental reading skills. Results from last year’s IREAD-3 test showed that 18.1% of Indiana’s third graders — nearly 15,000 — lacked foundational reading skills.
For children who are in the K-12 system, daily reading habits for a set period of time can be important. But for children too young for summer reading lists — or for school itself — there’s something simple parents can do: read to them.
Cat Cardwell, the community and family program director at the nonprofit Indy Reads, knows that reading to children might be more straightforward for some parents than others, for various reasons.
For example, the group highlighted data from the National Bureau of Economic Research showing children with parents who have low literacy levels are 72% more likely to have low literacy levels themselves. But Indy Reads offers summer programming meant for adults as well as kids.
Some of these programs allow parents and their kids to read together, though not necessarily the same books. And once a week, parents and kids can come and talk to Indy Reads about a book they recently read, why they liked it, and what it was about, says Cardwell.
Cardwell explains one of the biggest challenges of reading during the summer is that kids (and adult learners) don’t have people or mechanisms handy to enforce their reading comprehension. On summer break, there’s no teacher, no classroom, and therefore no activities meant to encourage reading comprehension and students’ literacy skills.
The kids can also complete worksheets to write a review of their book, but it is not mandatory.
And during summer Sunday afternoons, Indy Reads also allows kids to give show-and-tell style presentations about a book they’ve read, sharing why they would recommend it to other students.
Parents of pre-kindergarten kids, or those who struggle with literacy, should read aloud with their children and point to the words on the page, in order to emphasize the link between letters on the page and sounds.
But for children who are in kindergarten or older, adults should work on creating a daily routine.
“We encourage establishing a daily habit of reading 20 minutes a day,” says Devery North, Program Specialist focusing on kids ages 6-12 at the Indianapolis Public Library, which has an annual summer reading program.
Recognizing that the amount of time spent reading is more important than the number of books read, the library has changed its annual summer reading program to encourage reading 20 minutes a day.
“If the kids read every day over the course of June and July, they’ll reach 20 hours by the end of our program,” says the library’s Devery North, a program specialist who focuses on kids ages 6-12.
Audio books, comic books, magazines, and newspapers now count towards the daily reading goals. And like at Indy Reads, kids can earn prizes for their reading accomplishments.
“The program is meant to encourage kids to read on their level, not reading a bigger, harder book just to earn points,” says North. “If a book is more accessible to them and interesting to them, then kids are more likely to read and develop daily reading habits.”
Chalkbeat Indiana
