Reading and Writing During the Summer Will Help Your Child Retain the Skills They Learned

Reading and writing during the summer will help your child retain the skills they learned during the school year.

--Go to the library at least 1 time each week. They have special programs for children at the Wamego and Manhattan public activities on a weekly basis. Call for a list of times.

--Check out books from the public library or our library here at St. George.

Our library at the school will be open Sundays from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. for story time. Students can come and listen to stories, read books, take AR tests, and even check out books.

**Your child should read books to you, but you should also check out books to read to your child.

--On Mondays the library will be open from 1:00-3:00 p.m. for Movie Monday. You can even bring snacks to eat while you enjoy the show!! All movies will be rated G or PG.

The summer reading program here at the school will run from

June 11 – August 6.

--Take a field trip to the creek, park, hiking, bicycling, swimming, fishing, zoo, etc.

--Make sure you take time for them to talk about what they saw or did. Encourage your child to use descriptive words when telling you about their day. (“Wow, the fish I caught was really big and slimy. It wiggled a lot when it came out of the water.” You could even prompt them... “What color was it?” “What kind of fish was it?” “Tell me how you caught it!” (put a worm on the hook, cast the line out into the water,….etc. Help them with all of the things they had to do to catch the fish.)

--Have them keep a journal of their summer activities.

--Talk with your child as much as possible. This helps with language development.

--Encourage your child to let you know if they don’t know what a word means. Also, while you are reading to them or when they are reading to you, take the time to stop and ask what happened. Or, ask what did that mean?

--When your child retells a story to you, make sure they include:

Character(s)

Setting

Problem

Details of the story

Resolution (what happened in the end)

You may have to model how to retell the story if they are not telling enough or if they are telling too much. Then, have them retell it to you again the way you modeled.

--Mrs. Page made a calendar of skills to practice each day this summer. Please try to do these. They will only take a few minutes, and will really help keep your child’s skills sharp.

Enjoy your child!! The summer will go very fast, and we want you both to enjoy it together.