Dear Parent or Guardian,

Many students make great progress in their reading ability during the school year.  They have a structured environment that requires them to frequently engage with many different types of texts.  Because of these structures, most students will complete their current school year, ready to move on to the challenges of the next school year.

In the summer months, however, in the absence of any class requirements to read, some students will lose some of that progress and experience what is known as summer reading loss.  Summer reading loss is a real concern, especially for struggling readers.  A struggling reader tends to make less progress than the average student during the school year as it is; as a result, summer reading loss also has a greater impact on struggling readers as well.

Fortunately, summer reading loss is not difficult to prevent.  The solution is simply to spend time reading over the summer.  If students spend as little as a half hour per day reading a book or participating in a reading activity, summer reading loss can be avoided.

In order to help prevent summer reading loss, and other academic losses, we have put together a Summer Resource Guide.  The resource guide can be found at https://www.kentschools.net/rhs-intervention-lab/.  In it you will find recommendations for strategies, games and websites that can be used to help with student’s academic achievements over the summer.  Also included at the bottom of this letter is your student’s ZPD* score. If you take this score to the website arbookfind.com, you can enter your student’s ZPD score and get hundreds of book recommendations that are age appropriate and written at your student’s approximate reading level.  More directions can be found at the Intervention Lab blog.

Thank you for the part that you play in your student’s education.  We hope that you find the items included in the resource guide helpful, engaging and fun.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us over the summer via email.  We look forward to seeing your student again in the Fall.

Sincerely,

Mark Brewer                Crystal Roberts                Elizabeth Hearns

Your child’s ZPD score is ______________________                    *Zone of proximal development

mbrewer@kentschools.net

croberts@kentschools.net

ehearns@kentschools.net