Some reading ideas from Reading Rockets, the NEA and Ms. Brinkhuis:

• Read aloud together with your child every day.
• Set a good example!
• Read the same book your child is reading and discuss it.
• Let kids choose what they want to read, even popular fiction, Captain Underpants is not winning any awards for literature, but has created plenty of avid readers.
• Buy books on tape/cd/audible, especially for a child with a learning disability.  Car time is an excellent time to listen to a book!  Take some along as you travel this summer.

A recent research report from Scholastic summarized that lack of summer reading over the years before age 17 accounted for two years of cumulative reading loss.

The “summer slide” is a real deal and the easiest solution is to read.  How many books does your child need to prevent the slide?  At least six at his or her instructional level.

The report names one of the challenges to summer reading is access to books.  We have an answer for that – summer “library”  — we have gone out to the community every summer for the past 10 years and given away books for at least one day a week for four to six weeks of summer.

Those books have been donated by the Vienna community and particularly the Cunningham Park Community.

This summer we will have the Cunningham Park library open every Wednesday evening 5:30-7:00 pm, the weeks of July 11 through July 25.  We will be giving away books as well as hosting board games.

And with her final word, here’s a video boost of encouragement from Ms. Brinkhuis!