June 2021
Summer Newsletter
DEAR FAMILIES:
Congratulations on completing the 2020-2021
School Year. Each student has worked hard and has
shown so much dedication in their academic and
social progress. Now more than ever it is critically
important to keep students engaged in summer
reading. Engaging students in reading throughout
the summer will ensure their academic success in the
fall. To overcome summer reading loss teachers
have found ways to get books into students’ hands
during the summer break. Students are encouraged
to read both fiction and nonfiction text that are on
their reading level. Below is a list of age-
appropriate home strategies to support your child’s
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills over
the summer.
At Home Reading Strategies
The benefits of reading are well documented in
research. Reading for pleasure helps students
develop stronger social skills, vocabulary, and
writing skills. Reading also helps students
understand and process more complex ideas while
building on prior knowledge. Finally, reading can
improve students’ self-efficacy. Self-efficacy in
reading is defined as the “beliefs students have in
their ability to read successfully” (Boakye,
2015). When students have self-efficacy, they build
confidence in themselves, which allows students to
carry out the proper skills needed to become
successful readers. Students who have self-efficacy
are eager to learn, feel in
control of their learning, and are willing to overcome
challenges that may arise when learning new
strategies. Much can be said for students who have
negative self-efficacy. Students who believe they
are unable to succeed in reading may become
discouraged to read and learn new strategies and
skills needed to be successful readers. Therefore,
implementing these strategies over the summer will
improve students’ self-efficacy while improving
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
• Phonological Activities: Encourage
phonemic awareness by identifying
beginning, middle and ending sounds, sound
substitution, and deletion in words (Albee, et
al., 2019).
• Sight Word Games: Use current first and pre-
second grade Dolch sight words to play the
games, Boom! (Appendix A) and Snakes and
Ladders (Appendix B) (Albee, et al., 2019).
• Phonics: By the end of first grade, students
must be proficient in phonics skills.
Struggling readers often lack these skills
(Albee, et al., 2019). Therefore, using the
Fundations Choice Board (Appendix C) over
the summer will improve students’ ability to
read and identify parts of words.
Additionally, students can identify words
with glued sounds (e.g. -all, -am, -an, -ang, -
ank, -ing, -ink, -onk, -ong, -ung, -unk).
• Vocabulary: Strengthen vocabulary
development by looking up words in a
primary dictionary and record definitions to
identified words. As students read a text
they can identify, highlight or
write down each sight word and use the words in a
sentence. Finally, students can differentiate shades
of meaning by identify and categorizing cards into
three categories: noun, adjective, and verb within a
text.
• Prediction touches upon students’ prior
knowledge to prepare them for the text they
are about to read (Campbell and Cuba,
2015). Predication is a pre-reading strategy
in which readers use information from a text
and their personal experiences to foresee
what they are going to read about or what is
going to happen next. Prior to reading a text,
have your child use the title, headings, or
pictures to make predictions.
• Work with your child to ask and answer
questions throughout a text. As students
successfully generate questions, they take
ownership of the types of the questions asked
and how to find answers to their questions
(Humphries & Ness, 2015). Generating
questions is an effective way to scaffold this
reading comprehension strategy so your child
can comprehend what he or she is reading.
• After your child has read a text, have him or
her identify and recall the temporal order of
events (Gouldthorp et al., 2018).
Reflection
Fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills play
an important role in students learning to read.
Emergent learners must decode and encode words in
order to understand their meanings. Once students
understand the words they are reading, they create
meaning and can effectively communicate and
comprehend text. Readers cannot communicate or
understand a text without knowing what most of the
words actually mean. As children learn to read and
communicate more, they increase their fluency and
vocabulary.
In addition, comprehension is a crucial part in
students reading success. Reading comprehension,
or the process of engaging in text for the purpose of
obtaining and constructing meaning (Snow, 2002)
has vital importance to academic success in
students. Reading is one of the most
challenging skills for students to achieve.
Without the ability to read well, there is the
possibility of failing in learning or
experiencing difficulties in making progress
academically. The connection between text
and learning is essential because when
students are actively involved in the reading
process, students are able to better
understand the meaning of the text. It is
essential for students to draw on prior
knowledge and experiences to improve
comprehension (Hattan, 2019). Therefore,
teachers and parents can improve students’
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension
skills through the summer reading strategies
listed.
As a first grade teacher, I will foster greater
integration of ideas by implementing such
strategies in daily instruction. I will not only
implement these strategies during my literacy
block, but also will implement them
throughout all content areas. Ensuring that
strategies are used throughout all content
areas gives students the opportunity to use
independent practice for genuine learning.
Allowing students to explore a variety of text
and use various strategies is at the very core
of learning. As students develop
independence practice, they learn from
exploring, making mistakes, and ultimately
gain self-efficacy.
Have a great summer and keep reading!
Miss Rosario
First Grade Teacher