“Let kids choose what they want to read,” says Anne McGill-Franzen, professor of Reading Education in the Theory and Practice in Teacher Education (TPTE) department located in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. McGill-Franzen believes kids who do not read in the summer will not perform well in the following academic year. By allowing them to choose what books they want to read encourages children and decreases the achievement gap.
“It doesn’t matter what a child is reading as long as they are reading,” says Richard Allington, professor of Reading Education. Allington feels by encouraging children to read in the summer will help them tremendously when school starts again.
McGill-Franzen and Allington share many suggestions in this TN Today article to help kids maintain their reading skills during the summer.