Louisiana Summer Reading Lists and Links

Summer vacation is here! What do you do with children of all ages during those long, hot summer days? Summer reading!

Kids stay busy, entertained, and improve their skillswhen reading becomes a regular pastime. Regular contact with print materialssuch as books, magazines, and newspapers will help students become better readers and ultimately will improve their test scores.

We encourage you and your child to visit your local public library to obtain books and enroll in their summer reading programs. Stephen Krashen, author of The Power of Reading (Libraries Unlimited, 1993), concludes that reading is the most powerful tool available for building vocabulary as well as developing the ability to read, write, spell, and comprehend. In addition, voluntary reading (such as summer reading programs) has a major impact on students’ literacy progress.

An often overlooked tool for encouraging students to read is to read aloud to them, nomatter the age. As Jim Trelease says in his book The Read Aloud Handbook (Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2001), “It’s about teaching a child to want to read.” He relates important things that are happening when an adult reads to a child, including a pleasure connection being made between child & book and the huge amount of words being collected in the child’s listening vocabulary, which is the basis for speaking vocabulary, reading vocabulary, and writing vocabulary.

Mr. Trelease encourages “Three B’s”:

• The child’s ownership of a book
• Filled book baskets placed throughout the home
• Purchase of a bed lamp for your child

 His book provides many Do’s and Don’ts of reading aloud, as well as suggestions for good read-aloud selections.