Warning: Your Kids Might Get Stupider This Summer

It’s a documented fact that children’s reading skills drop during the summer months. Children furthest down the socio-economic scale are the most likely to lose ground but all kids are at risk. Children have lots of playtime during the summer months but no instructional time in reading. So what’s to be done?

It’s not enough to tell a child to go read a book. Parents have to read with them and have conversations about books. Here are some ideas. When reading a book with your child, discuss what the characters may be feeling at any given moment. Ask your child to predict what might happen next in the plot. Make a list of interesting new words and encourage your child to use them in sentences. And always, always make reading fun! This is not just a nice, feel-good statement. If the pleasure centers of your child’s brain aren’t activated then your child will become an increasingly resistant reader over time.

Don’t forget your older kids. Adolescents need as much time reading as young children. Try having some “beach reading” time with your older kids. For a half-hour between dunks everyone can read a book or magazine; then spend five minutes sharing what each of you just read. A lot of young adult literature is really edgy so you may even want to read some of the books your teens are reading. Here are some of my personal favorites:

Kerosene by Chris Wooding

This is the tale of a boy who deals with stress by setting fires. To make things worse, two girls are further destabilizing him by toying with his affections. The finale is, to say the least, explosive.

Cut by Patricia McCormick

This book reads like a mystery. The young heroine is in a hospital for self-destructive teens. She self mutilates and is also selectively mute. Will she open up to her therapist or will our heroine self implode as she lives among cutters and bulimics in this Snake Pit for teens.

A Great and Terrible Beauty and its sequel Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

This is a fantasy series about a group of Victorian girls who gain the ability to travel into an alternative universe. The trouble is that they are being pursued by a malicious sorceress who is incognito and out for trouble.

The Midnighters trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

Yet another alternate reality novel; this trilogy follows a group of contemporary, dysfunctional teens who discover a secret hour (and some terrible monsters) tucked in between midnight and 12:01 AM.

Breathing Underwater by Alex Finn

This is the diary of an abusive teen in trouble with the law after beating up on his girlfriend. It is a tale of slow and painful self-realization that takes us from the courtroom to group therapy and into a life of gradual awakening.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Girl meets vampire in this very spooky tale of unconventional love. The last half of the book will have you holding your breath in suspense.

Gangsta Rap by Benjamin Zephaniah

This is a mystery novel in which teen rappers are forced to deal with another group whose followers are becoming increasingly violent. The question is, who is getting them all riled up. Somebody is deliberately causing trouble, but whom? And for what reason?

A Very Nice Prom Mess by Brian Sloan

A closeted gay teen and his even-more closeted boyfriend take their “beards” to the prom leading to disaster upon disaster. This is a comic yet agonizing coming out tale taking place in a single night.

Inventing Elliot by Graham Gardner

Elliot was the town geek and bully-magnet in his last school. Now, in his new school he has reinvented his image and attracted the admiration of a secretive boys club that is found of malicious pranks. Elliot must decide: Will he sell his soul for popularity or will he stand up for what is right even it makes him a bully-magnet once more?