Can Summer Tutoring Help in Lafayette, CA?

Find out how summer tutoring can help your child avoid summer slide in reading from Orinda to Walnut Creek

What is summer slide? And how does summer tutoring help?

“’Summer slide’ refers to the loss in reading skills that can occur when students are not exposed to quality reading materials during the summer.” 

Raz-Kids and Reading A-Z – A Report on the 2013 Summer Reading Field Studies

Although summer is a time for fun and relaxation, it is important to make sure your kids are still exposed to and reading quality books during the summer. As long as kids are reading quality books every day, they will avoid “summer slide”. 

But getting kids to read quality books on their own is not always easy. Reading used to be one of the only options people had for entertainment. During a long summer, it was nice to escape into a different world for hours by reading a good book. But now with phones and other devices, kids have constant entertainment and distraction literally at their fingertips.

With all this easy access to entertainment and information, reluctant readers will find tons of ways to avoid reading. These readers need an accountability partner to keep them motivated, focused, and on track. 

Summer tutoring helps by being an accountability partner for your child

Many parents are working full-time while their kids are off for the summer and don’t have the time or energy to be their child’s reading accountability partner. In addition, some kids resist their parents urging them to read and can become dramatic with a lot of yelling and crying. This is not fun!

On the other hand, a professional tutor makes a great accountability partner with your child to get them to read quality books every day. Here are some ways summer tutoring with a professional helps your child read good books every day and avoid summer slide.

#1 Tutoring online

Tutoring online helps your child with accountability because it is convenient. Read more about the benefits of online tutoring here. This convenience will make it easy for them to commit to the tutoring sessions and be accountable. They will be happy they don’t have to leave the comfort of their own home and that there is no wasted summertime driving someplace.

Tutoring online also helps with your child’s accountability because they have a fixed weekly appointment on their calendar. They will commit to being prepared by reading in advance and they will commit to showing up on time.

#2 Access to resources

In order for a child to read quality books every day, they will need to have an endless supply of books to read. You can keep taking them to the library every week or you can download digital books. Many books on Kindle can be downloaded for free and there are many ebooks available from the public library.

Professional tutors usually have access to lots of quality online books. For example, when you tutor with me, your child gets a subscription to Kids A-Z so they never run out of things to read. You can also ask your child’s school if they can give you log-in credentials for Kids A-Z, Epic, or Lexia.

#3 Using contracts, logs, and journals

The professional tutor can motivate your child to read this summer by getting them to sign a contract. By signing the contract your child commits to reading every day for at least 30 minutes. After they have read, they record the pages in their reading log. When they are done with the book they record it in their summer reading journal and write a short summary. The professional tutor can provide a physical or digital copy of these contracts and logs.

#4 Project-based inquiry style of summer tutoring

In the summer when there is no homework, tutors can motivate kids to investigate a topic or author that they are interested in. The tutor and the child formulate a driving question and then they find resources together to answer the driving question. At the end of the summer, the child presents their findings using a format (presentation, video, etc.) of their choice. Diving deep into an investigation of their choice can be very motivating for many children. Working with a tutor helps them stay on track.

#5 Bookclub syle of summer tutoring

Bookclub style is when your child and the tutor decide on a book to read and discuss. Both agree to read up to a certain page before each meeting so that the conversations can be rich and meaningful. The tutor will ask guiding questions. Book clubs are great because they involve daily independent reading with goal setting and accountability. Professional reading tutors are familiar with many children and young adult books and can make book suggestions.

Summer tutoring can help

Helping your child avoid summer slide, simply means making sure they have access to lots of books and that they have a way to stay accountable to their commitment to reading every day. You can be their accountability partner and keep them motivated by being interested, asking questions, and taking them to the library every week. You can also give them a reading contract and book log and challenge them to a reading contest.

But if being your child’s reading accountability partner sounds too overwhelming, summer tutoring with a professional tutor makes reading for your child easy and fun. A summer tutor can turn summer slide into summer soar.

Teacher Justine offers engaging tutoring for your child both during the school year and during the summer. My tutoring is personalized for each child based on their needs and interests. I always give a free assessment to find out what are your child’s needs and to see if we are a good fit. If you are interested in exploring summer tutoring options, get in touch with me today.