Ask Bonnie

Once those lazy days of summer arrive and the schedule is packed with swimming, camp, and family vacations, it can be a challenge to find time for learning. But you don’t have to let your child’s reading skills grow cold once school’s out. There are plenty of ways to make reading a natural part of your summer fun!

Explore the library. Visit your local library to check out books and magazines that your child hasn’t seen before. Many libraries have summer reading programs, book clubs, and reading contests for even the youngest borrowers. With a new library card, your child will feel extra grown up checking out books.

Read on the road. If you’re going on a long car trip, make sure the back seat is stocked with favorite reads. When you’re not at the wheel, read the books aloud. Get some audiobooks (many libraries have large selections) and listen to them together during drive time.

Make your own books. Ask kids what they like best about summer – maybe it’s baseball, ice cream, or the pool. Then have them draw pictures of it or cut out pictures from magazines and catalogs. Help them paste the pictures onto paper to make a booklet and write corresponding text. When you’re done, read the book together. Keep it on the bookshelf and reread it when you need to fend off the cold-weather blahs!

Keep in touch. You don’t have to go away to write about summer vacation. Even kids who are staying close to home can pick out postcards and use them to tell friends and relatives about summer adventures. Ask a relative to be your child’s pen pal and encourage them to write to each other regularly.

Keep up the reading rituals. Even if everything else changes during the summer, keep up your child’s reading routines. Read together every day – whether it’s just before bedtime or under a shady tree on a lazy afternoon. And everybody loves to read at the beach. Just brush the sand off the pages. It’s no sweat!