It seems unbelievable that we are already back talking about summer school activities for elementary students. But, here we are- nearing the end of the school year. Sometimes the mere mention of the words “summer slide” is enough to get teachers (and parents!) all in a tizzy. As they begin searching for the just-right activities that will keep their students and kids at the top of their game. When you’re a teacher teaching summer school, a parent working with their child, or a tutor teaching over the summer, it can be hard to find reading resources. There’s no doubt that kids would much rather hear the jingle of the ice cream truck than hear the words “reading log” over the summer. But regardless of how sweet the summer is, sprinkling in summer reading comprehension practice can benefit students in a big way. And I’ve got just what you need to keep your readers learning over the summer break!
Summer Reading Comprehension Worksheets
If you’re looking for summer school activities for elementary students, my Phonics Focused Review Passages are great for sending home inside your summer folders. These work great with both struggling readers or as enrichment and are a great way to focus on summer reading comprehension.
Whether you’re planning to teach summer school or simply want to send helpful resources home to parents, these summer reading passages are just what you need to prevent the summer slide. They’re a fantastic review of phonics concepts to reinforce skills that were taught through the end of the school year.
Similarly, if you’re looking to enrich, you can easily differentiate with my Phonics Focused Review Passages Bundle! The bundle contains all of the phonics skills you need, ranging from CVC words to vowel teams to soft c/g to common prefixes. When you purchase the bundle, you will have all of the phonics skills at your fingertips so you can differentiate accordingly!
Using Reading Passages for Comprehension in the Summer
These reading passages are all you need to practice reading comprehension during the summer. Because these passages have so much to offer, let’s dive in and see how they can benefit your students!
- These work for struggling readers.
- Have a reader who’s a bit behind and could use some review of what they learned in the previous year? No problem! When you scroll through these passages, you’ll notice that there are tons of different grade levels to choose from. This means that you can meet your students where they are and choose specific phonics skills that they need to review.
- What people are saying:
- I use these for my students with learning disabilities in order to build their confidence with reading full-page passages, while also providing them with something that is at their level. – Teaching With Mrs. Bonham
- I use these for my students with learning disabilities in order to build their confidence with reading full-page passages, while also providing them with something that is at their level. – Teaching With Mrs. Bonham
- These work for struggling readers.
- These work for enrichment.
- Have a reader who’s ahead of the game? No problem! These summer reading comprehension worksheets are organized by beginning grades and ending grades, so they’re organized in such a way where it’s easy to choose exactly where your soaring reader might be.
- What people are saying: I use it for my high readers in first grade for fluency development and with my on level students to help them with decoding skills. – Belkys M.
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- These work for review.
- Review is often something that’s overlooked, but it’s so important. In order to build upon what we already know, we must ensure that they already know it! These summer reading passages can be used for review of patterns students have already studied so that you can confidently build upon prior knowledge.
- Students can highlight words they already know as well as sort words into their respective boxes. This gives students a chance to show you what they know and also work to find words with a phonics pattern they’re currently working on. And speaking of words they already know…
- Bonus: Because of the array of phonics patterns, you can use these as mini assessments to see how your students are growing or to simply see where to start.
- What people are saying: These are my new go-to review passages in my guided reading conferences and groups. We use them to review content! – Shelley P.
Engaging and Low Prep for Summer School
- These work for fluency practice.
- Fluency and comprehension go hand-in-hand. When students are fluent, they are more readily able to comprehend what’s being read because their brains don’t have to work so hard to decode every single word.
- These summer school ready reading passages are also perfect for practicing fluency. You can choose to model each passage for how it’s supposed to be read, and students can read it back to you using inflection and accuracy. And again, with the variety of passages, it makes it easy for you to find one at that just-right level. Use these for repeated readings to focus on pace and fluidity as well.
- What people are saying: I used this resource for a few struggling readers in my class. I found the passages helped my students improve their reading fluency. – Alice W.
- These work for summer reading comprehension.
- Each passage comes with comprehension questions that students can answer after they read. Students will use what they learned in the text and immediately apply it to questions at the end of the story.
- Helpful tip: comprehension questions don’t always need to be looked at after reading a passage. In fact, reading comprehension questions before students read a text is beneficial because:
- It helps them locate answers as they’re reading
- It helps them practice finding textual evidence
- It helps them understand the passage’s meaning before it’s even read.
- These passages aren’t intimidating in length, so it’s easy for students to find the will and encouragement this summer to complete them and work their way through each worksheet.
- What people are saying: I like that these passages are a full page and do not seem babyish to my intermediate students. They are able to practice the skills we are learning in class and work on their comprehension at the same time. – 123’s and IEP’s
- These work because they’re easy to prep!
- One of the aspects that is a must with summer school teaching is that whatever we are giving our students, it needs to be easy to prep. Since we prep all year, we want our summer curriculum to be easy to follow, print, and apply. These passages are print-and-go, so you know you won’t be spending any time behind your desk!
- What people are saying: It didn’t take much time to prepare this resource, so it was easy for me to use in a time crunch. – Carolynn Laurich
Extra Summer Reading Activities
If you’d like to learn more about using these passages for phonics review, fluency, and comprehension, sign up for these free phonics based reading passages samples!
If you’re interested in reading more about how to help students with reading over the summer, check out my blog post about Keeping Students Reading Over the Summer!
