All students look forward to summer vacation: it’s a well-deserved break from the classroom! However, those few months away from school can cause students to lose some of the skills and knowledge they’ve acquired. Fortunately, there are ways to keep your kid learning throughout the summer.
Studies have shown that reading is a great weapon against learning loss and is just as beneficial as summer school. That’s good news, because books are everywhere! Online or at the library, you can get your hands on a litany of free reading material for every taste. Does your child need some guidance? You can encourage them to do the following:
- Check out our elementary school and high school recommended reading lists
- Explore book genres (e.g., crime fiction, fairy tales, fantasy)
- Pick themes that inspire them
- Read several books by an author they like
- Play Book of Spells, our reading comprehension game
- Etc.
Reading a story aloud as a family is not only a wonderful bonding activity, but also a way to send your child a positive message: reading is fun! You can also set aside family reading time, where everyone dives into their own book. Afterward, you can work your child’s brain! Ask them to do the following:
- Recap what they’ve read
- Talk about their favourite part
- Imagine what comes next
- Identify the story’s themes
- Look up the definitions of two new words
- Etc.
Want to make sure your child understands what they read? We have a great tool that can help: 24 questions to boost your child’s reading comprehension at school or home.
During your child’s summer vacation, you might visit different cultural sites, go to a new city, or take long walks in nature. All of these activities, big or small, are great opportunities for your child to learn more about the world around them and deepen their learning. To make things fun, you can ask your child to do a little research (e.g., by reading books and magazines, or going online) on the different places you visit. Ask them to find the following:
- The best travel route
- A fun fact about the place
- A famous person who lived there
- Information on the fauna and flora
- Details about the local cuisine
- Etc.
Why not suggest that your little one chronicle their summer adventures in the form of a travel journal, novella, or comic book? Writing is a great way to develop certain skills:
- Creativity
- Good grammar
- Spelling
- Proper syntax
- Etc.
On rainy days or slow mornings, your child can head to Alloprof’s game zone (French only). They’ll find tons of fun activities that can help them retain what they’ve learned in school:
- Fin Lapin 3 (division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction)
- Magimot (French vocabulary)
- Conjugo (French verb tenses)
- Etc.
Need some extra tips to keep your child’s mind sharp this summer? On our website, you’ll find a wide selection of French exercises for different school subjects.
Writing : Marie-Claude Ouellet
Scientific review : Mathieu Labine-Daigneault, resource teacher
Rewriting : The Alloprof Parents' team