Worldly Words

Learn about a different aspect of the world around you each week this summer! Brainstorm topics about the natural world that your child finds interesting, then put those topics in a hat or bowl. Have your child draw one topic each week to learn about together. As you read each week, highlight the different informational text features that help aid learning (e.g. bolded or italicized type, tables of contents, labeled drawings, captioned boxes, diagrams/charts and using vocabulary context to help decipher the meaning of challenging words.) Use a variety of informational media (web sites, news articles, magazines, books) to illustrate how learning strategies shift by media type. As the summer progresses, build on these early strategies and teach your child to skim, scan, and summarize. First skim the text—ask your child questions like what do you notice on the page or think the key points might be? Then scan it and digest the information slowly. Finally, talk to each other about what you just read. What was important? What was most interesting about the book or article? What does your child want to find out more about as a result of reading the book or article? You may find yourself throwing out the hat topics and delving deeper into unexpected arenas!