Summer Learning

Welcome to summer.  We hope everyone is enjoying the more relaxed days.   It is time to travel, swim, relax and recharge. It is also a time when our kiddos can lose some of the skills they have gained over the past school year.  Here are some tips to help keep those skills sharp over summer…….

• Take time to read with your child or to set them up with an audible book. A great app that reads books aloud is the VoiceDream Reader app.  Check out the Rett-U Book Club. There are new books coming this summer and books from previous years available on our YouTube channel (YouTube Rett U Book Playlist).   Find 15-30 minutes a day to read and model communication on your child’s device.
• Use a variety of soft and hi-tech communication strategies to model language with your child. Print off device pages and put them in plastic sleeves to take to the beach, amusement park, the pool, etc.  The places that might not be conducive to taking the Tobii with you. 
• Spend some time using the ABC Flipbooks to write with your child each week so they have a record of what they’ve done over the summer to share with their friends when they go back to school.
• Take time each day to talk with your child about what they did that day which will help with keeping their communication skills going over summer.
• Find reading materials that are in your child’s interests. After reading, you can model writing a sentence using flipbooks and then have your child write about what they’ve read. 
• Put the close captioning on when watching television so your child can view the words while hearing them performed aloud.
• Help your child get their library card, if they don’t have one, and visit the library on a weekly basis. The library in my city has different activities throughout the week for different ages of kids.  Check your local library to see what they have available.
• Set reasonable limits for television viewing. This is so important, or they will get back to school and go on a TV strike.  TV addiction is a huge factor in decreasing work cooperation at school.

Rett-U Book Club will be going on all summer with a book every other week. The communication pages will be available on the www.Rett-U.org under the News section.  If you have any suggestions for the Book Club, we would love to hear them. 

Don’t forget as you are enjoying summer to start planning for next school year.  Please let us know if we can be of assistance for your child’s education especially when thinking about their IEP and how the school is doing to help them learn to read, write and communicate.  Have a great summer and enjoy this time with your child.