Vacations Improve Reading!

Vacations are always a good idea- for relaxation, for exploration, and for information. Vacations can be elaborate or simple. Whenever you leave the town or city you live in, no matter how big or how small, you are giving your child's brain more to absorb. This is particularly important in reading. When children read a story, they have to connect it to something they already know. The technical word for this is "schema." If you hardly ever leave your house, your neighborhood, or you town or city (especially if you live in a small or rural area), your child will be a less likely to put words to pictures of ideas that are new to him.

Vacationing helps build new ideas and new discoveries. If you cannot afford a long or far away vacation, take a trip to the nearest city (driving distance) to you, even if it is smaller than yours. Small towns are good to teach big city kids about rural life so they know why country mouse was different than city mouse.

So try to take a vacation. Find a relative to visit. Find a new place to explore.

And on that note, I will be vacationing for a few days at the beach!