Research conducted with children who have missed out on reading over summer or long vacation breaks has shown us that the missed opportunity to read and strengthen literacy skills over summer creates long-term, adverse impacts for children. That’s why Peered is more committed than ever to helping every student across the country to keep reading. Peered tutors love reading with children of all ages, and we often host reading hours to share our love of reading with the elementary and middle schoolers with whom we work.
There are many ways to model literacy and encourage children to read. Here are just a few that can help your child develop stronger reading comprehension and vocabulary:
1.Reading out loud to your child can provide healthy models of fluency in reading.
2. Reading books a grade level above your child’s grade out loud can help him/her build vocabulary.
3.. Having children listen to a pre-recorded audio story through Alexa or another tech device while reading along can be helpful in teaching them to identify words.
4. Playing games with words like rhyming games with sight words, word bingo, reading tic-tac-toe, or memory guessing games to strengthen sight reading.
5. Recreating scenes from a book as a tableau or 1 act play brings books to life for children who learn through movement.
6. Find a “Reading Buddy” for your child. Peered tutors often serve as reading buddies. Get paired with one of our peer reading buddies today!
We have compiled a list of resources and literacy website for children and parents to help get you started.
Reading Rockets is a literacy initiative that offers parents and children resources on learning to read, book lists, summer reading ideas, and much much more!
Raz Kids, Epic!, IRead
Raz Kids, Epic!, and IRead all offer children an endless supply of digital book at varying levels of difficulty online. Raz Kids is offering their eBooks to children and families for free during the pandemic. Epic and IRead have similar programs.
Developed by The Screen Actors Guild Foundation, Storyline Online features accomplished actors and actresses reading some of their favorite children’s books. Each story comes with a free Activity Guide and can be viewed on YouTube or SchoolTube. Rainbow Fish, Wilfrid Gordon Macdonald Partridge, and To Be a Drum are just a few of the books available.
The International Children’s Digital Library
The International Children’s Digital Library has the goal of building a collection of books that represent children, cultures and languages from all over the world. The aspiration is to offer children and families the opportunity to be represented in the books they are reading and also to appreciate other cultures.