As research has clarified, reading practice is a critical driver of reading achievement (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2021). To grow as readers, students need sustained opportunities to read.
As schools head into the winter break—a time when reading practice often declines—educators can play an important role in ensuring that students maintain the momentum they’ve built this fall. Even small, intentional steps can help students return to school in January more confident, more fluent, and more ready to learn.
Below are practical, actionable ways to help ensure your students get the reading practice they need now and through the winter break:
- Protect daily reading time now.
Aim for 10-20 minutes of reading during the school day, whether through a “reading warm-up" or end-of-day reading time, or a short block devoted to independent reading. Digital tools such as EPS Reading Assistant can also support meaningful practice during this time.
- Prioritize wide reading and student choice.
Offer students access to a range of books, short stories, poems, or digital texts. When students are free to choose what they read, engagement increases—and so does reading volume.
- Send home readable texts for the break.
Provide students with 2-3 texts that they can read independently during the winter break. For striving readers in the reading-to-learn phase of development, include decodable or controlled texts they can read successfully.
- Encourage repeated reading to support fluency development.
Send home poems, short passages, or familiar stories and suggest that students read them aloud several times—with expression. This can help build accuracy, fluency, and confidence.
- Make reading progress visible.
Offer a simple reading log so students can track their reading activity over the winter break. Tracking progress not only builds accountability, but it also highlights the habit-building nature of daily reading.
- Download a simple reading log your students can use.
- Get a tracker you can use with the digital tool Reading Assistant.
- Address access gaps.
If possible, send home books from the classroom or media center or share links to digital texts so that everyone has something they’re excited to read at home.
- Promote family read-alouds.
Invite families to listen to students read—even a few minutes a day can make a difference. These moments can strengthen fluency, confidence, and connection.
By taking these steps, educators can help students maintain steady reading practice during time away from school, setting the stage for a strong start when students return to school in the new year.
