Everyone loves to hear that school is out for summer. Reading is so important, so read on to learn how you can help your children over the break, and prevent a summer reading slide.

Encourage your student to participate in the CIS Summer Reading Challenge! If your student needs recommendations for a summer read, view our Red Dot titles specifically put together by our librarians for next year! Parents are welcome to join in and pick up some great titles yourself and share what you like to read.

KINDERGARTEN & PRIMARY SCHOOL

Did you know that a younger child’s reading progress can degenerate, or even be erased over a long break with no books. Here’s some ideas about what happens and how you can help your child over the break.

• Books Beat the Summer Slide (2016) by Samantha McGinnis
• Kids Who Read Beat the Summer Slide(2016) First Book Organization
• Summer Slide Adds Up (2014) Samantha McGinnis First Book Organization
• Summer Reading PSA by Dav Pilkey (2016)

Head over to our CIS LibGuide on Summer Reading for book lists by grades from our teacher librarians, as well as information on where to buy books and borrow books from the public library.

SECONDARY SCHOOL

It's so important that we help keep students’ "reading brains'' in shape over the summer, but it can be a challenge. Here’s some great tips from our teacher librarians on preventing the summer reading slide.

• Encourage your child to create a Goodreads account. Goodreads is an incredible resource for reviews, read-alikes, book lists as well as their famous Summer Reading Challenge!
• Find inspiration in review sites like Kirkus Reviews or Book Riot YA. In addition to reviews, they have articles, interviews and news about Netflix, games and movie adaptations.
• Encourage reading for sustained periods but EXPERIMENT with genre, language, non-fiction subjects, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers and graphic novels — the objective is to stay interested!
• If e-books and audiobooks are a better choice, be sure to check out our titles on BorrowBox (free to CIS secondary students)!

Pick up some great titles yourself and talk about what you like to read. To help start you off, here are some very readable books about reading in the digital age: The Shallows by Nicholas Carr; Stolen Focus by Johann Hari; Reader Come Home by Maryanne Wolf.