Most people think of holiday time as a break from school. But it also offers an opportunity to practice and improve reading skills in ways that are fun and exciting and that do not feel like "work." In this mini-course, you can try the different "lessons" throughout the holidays to help sharpen your children's skills and develop their love of reading. Lesson 1: Day 1: Making a Christmas, Chanukah, or Kwanzaa Wish List: This activity will surely get your children reading. Tell them that they need to read through store catalogs to make their holiday wish list. They must copy the write-up from the catalog under the picture and be able to read it to you aloud. The write-up should include the name of the product, the description, the price, and other important information. You can be sure they will want to be able to read the information about their favorite products! Lesson 2: Day 2: Using Recipes to Bake Holiday Treats Find some recipes for holiday treats such as cakes, cookies, or sweets. The only rule for baking them is: the children have to read the recipes aloud! This is a good time to practice phonics skills to decode the words, and comprehension skills to see that they can remember the directions they read. Time order is another great skill to practice, pointing out that the directions must be followed in the correct order. Ask your children to tell you the right order of directions after they read it. Ask them what would happen if you did the directions out of order. After reading through the recipes, and following the baking or cooking directions, enjoy the treats together! Lesson 3: Day 3: Holiday Songs Get a songbook of holiday songs. Before singing them, have the children read the words. This is another great opportunity to practice their phonics skills. You can ask them what the words to the songs mean--a chance to sharpen vocabulary skills and comprehension skills. After reading through the words, then have the family sing-along. Lesson 4: Day 4: Holiday Alphabet Hunt: Take a large sheet of construction paper or use a chalkboard or erasable board. Have the children find as many holiday words as they can that start with each letter of the alphabet. List them on the chart, and have the children draw pictures to go with them. Examples: e is for elf, S is for Santa, m is for menorah, etc. A variation would be to find words with certain phonics patterns the children are learning, such as all the holiday words that start with the consonant blends (bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gr, gl, etc.) Examples: cl--Claus; dr--dreidel; etc. Lesson 5: Day 5: Reading Holiday Books While it is easy to spend a lot of time in toy stores, make sure a local bookstore is on your list of places to visit. Give each child a gift certificate to pick out several books of his or her choice. Bookstores have become such homey family places, with some having snack bars for a cup of hot chocolate. There are great holiday programs in bookstores offered by authors. Then, after bringing the books home, have family reading time (see previous on-line course for ideas). There is nothing warmer and more loving than sitting together as a family, sharing a good book. We would love to hear from you on how these activities worked out for you and your family. Email us at readinginstruction@yahoo.com to share feedback on this course. If you have an idea that you would like to share with others, send them in and we will post them for others to enjoy! Happy Holidays! ReadingInstruction.com