Summer is an important time for rest and family, but it can also be when students lose some of the academic progress they made during the school year, often called the “summer slide.” Keeping up with reading, even in small, enjoyable ways, helps students maintain their skills and start the new school year feeling confident and ready to learn.

Here are a few simple ways to encourage reading at home this summer:

📖👓 Reading 101: Guide for Parents from Reading Rockets: What is reading? And what are the core skills that young children need to become successful readers? Learning to read is complex, but this overview can help explain key terms and demystify the process. This guide was developed in partnership with the National Education Association and Colorín Colorado.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🌎 Colorín Colorado: Reading Tips for Parents: Learn how families can support literacy at home, whether children are babies, toddlers, preschoolers, or in elementary school. Our one-page Reading Tip Sheets are available in thirteen languages and offer ideas for parents to help kids develop a love for reading and become successful readers. These tips are divided by age, however, many of them can be used with children at various ages and stages. We encourage you to choose the ones that work best for your child.

🌟📘 Start with a Book: Books and activities to build background knowledge: Start With a Book is a helpful site for parents and teachers who are looking for book suggestions, reading activities, and practical tips for teaching kids to read. Books are categorized by theme so you can choose subjects that you know interest your kid, and intentionally help to build their background knowledge, a key factor of reading comprehension.

🏠📝 Florida Center for Reading Research Printable Activities for Families: Developed by the team at the Regional Educational Laboratory—Southeast, these Family Activities have easy-to-follow instructions to help your child practice foundational reading skills. We invite you to view the short Family Videos for tips on how to use the activities to help your child grow as a reader. Using the Family Activities at home can help your child develop language, link sounds to letters, blend letters and word parts to read and write words and read for understanding.

🧮🐷 Math Practice with Freckle: Your child can continue to practice their math fluency on their Chromebook over the summer! Please read this parent tip sheet for guidance on how to keep your child’s math skills sharp with Freckle. 

🏡📏 Helping Your Child in the Area of Math (English / Español) - This tip sheet includes everyday strategies for supporting mathematical thinking at home. From asking problem-solving questions to using household items for counting and measuring, these ideas help make math a natural part of your daily routine.

🎲📚 Young Mathematicians - Math At Home: This website contains helpful videos about how to promote mathematical thinking and mindset at home, along with resources for simple games, books to read together about math, and more.

Summer is an important time for rest, work, and family, but it can also be when students lose some of the academic progress they made during the school year—often called the “summer slide.” Continuing to read, even through self-selected books, articles, or texts connected to personal interests or future goals, helps high school students maintain critical thinking skills and return in the fall prepared for more rigorous coursework.

📚🔎 AdLit.org is a valuable resource for parents aiming to support their middle and high school students' reading development during the summer. Parents can utilize AdLit's Book Finder to discover diverse fiction and nonfiction titles that resonate with their child's interests and cultural background. The site also provides themed booklists, author interviews, and discussion guides to enrich reading experiences. For those interested in structured activities, AdLit's "Start with a Book" project offers free themed toolkits featuring five days of reading and learning fun, complete with book recommendations, hands-on activities, writing ideas, and digital resources. By exploring these resources, parents can help prevent the "summer slide" and foster a love of reading that extends beyond the school year.

🎧📘 Learning Ally's Summer Reading Together (scroll to Middle School) program offers a wealth of resources to help parents keep their middle schoolers engaged in reading during the summer months. To further support reading engagement, Learning Ally offers a Middle School Activity Packet, which includes activities like "A-Z Book Chat" and "New Book Cover" to encourage critical thinking and creativity. These activities are designed to complement the reading experience and promote deeper engagement with the material.

Similar to reading, just having your kid(s) talk about math will help them a lot. You can turn your trip to the grocery store into a math conversation! Below are more specific ideas on how to have mathematical moments over the summer and a tip sheet to help you with the conversations that these activities will spark!

🏡📏 Helping Your Child in the Area of Math (English, Español): This tip sheet includes everyday practices to support mathematical and critical thinking in your home. Using this tip sheet, review the math students completed this year whether it’s using their completed enVision math workbooks or having them log-in through Class Link.

❤️🧮 Love Maths includes a collection of games that support students with a variety of skills and concepts. If you click “Year 3-Year 6” you will find games that utilize a variety of commonly found household items to play with your children. There are also videos for each game so you can see how it is played.  

⚖️🧩 SolveMe Mobiles Interactive Puzzles: Use logic to solve visual, interactive mathematical puzzles. Play and even build SolveMe Mobiles together. As you do this together, discuss ways you solved it and make sure to get creative as there isn’t just one way to figure it out. 

♠️🃏 Multiplication Card Game - Use a regular deck of cards, with face cards removed. Aces count as the number 1. Distribute the deck between two people and place the decks face down. Each player takes 2 cards and multiplies to find the product of the 2 numbers shown on the card. Players compare products. The player with the highest product takes all the cards from that round. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins.

🚢📊 Numberline BattleShip - It’s recommended that you play this together on the same computer so you can discuss where the number goes and why it goes there. There’s even a pause button! Similar games have been proven to increase student’s fractional understanding, so we recommend starting at whole numbers, but progressing to fractions once your student is comfortable with whole numbers.

⛱️☀️Tang Math: During the break, students can use Tang Math to complete engaging math activities.These activities are a mix of paper pencil and online that blend problem solving, games, and grade level learning. There's an optional competition, but we think the math activities and game board are fun even without that! (English: Parent and Guardian Information Letter; Español: Carta Informativa para Padres and Tutores)

Since students will have their Chromebooks over the summer, they have the opportunity to stay engaged and continue practicing learned skills from this past school year. 

Students can continue to work on their Star Skills Plan over the summer or complete the Summer Boost Skills Plan. The Summer Boost Skills Plan is 20 days long and sets students up for success in the fall in both math and language arts. Students should select their grade for the upcoming school year. For example, students who just finished sixth grade, should select seventh grade.

Another option: Enter IXL’s 2026 Study in the Sun Contest. Contestants who answer 7,000 or more IXL questions between June 8 and August 2, will be entered into a random drawing to win a Visa gift card.

It is recommended that students spend no more than 15-20 minutes per day on IXL and are encouraged to strive for a Smartscore of 80 on each skill. Individual students who need a challenge may aim for a Smartscore higher than 80.

Summer is an important time for rest, work, and family, but it can also be when students lose some of the academic progress they made during the school year—often called the “summer slide.” Continuing to read, even through self-selected books, articles, or texts connected to personal interests or future goals, helps high school students maintain critical thinking skills and return in the fall prepared for more rigorous coursework. 

The teachers of Norristown Area High School and the Roosevelt Campus of NAHS feel it is important for students to continue to maintain and improve reading and analysis skills through the summer months as well as appreciate literature for personal enjoyment. To that end, the teachers in the English department have put together a list of suggested titles for grades 9-12.

Students who are scheduled to take a Weighted Honors English course in the coming school year must complete reading over the summer months. Many of these texts are available in the NAHS library and are available for check-out to NASD students over the summer. Students are invited to keep reader's notebooks while reading the assigned titles.

All AP Summer Reading Assignments are also available on the NAHS website.

Since students will have their Chromebooks over the summer, they have the opportunity to stay engaged and continue practicing learned skills from this past school year. 

Students can continue to work on their MAP Skills Plan over the summer or complete the Summer Boost Skills Plan. The Summer Boost Skills Plan is 20 days long and sets students up for success in the fall in both math and language arts. Students should select their grade for the upcoming school year. For example, students who just finished sixth grade, should select seventh grade.

It is recommended that students spend no more than 15-20 minutes per day on IXL and are encouraged to strive for a Smartscore of 80 on each skill. Individual students who need a challenge may aim for a Smartscore higher than 80.

Study in The Sun Contest: Enter IXL’s 2026 Study in the Sun Contest. Contestants who answer 7,000 or more IXL questions between June 8 and August 2, will be entered into a random drawing to win a Visa gift card. 

📚📝 CommonLit: Provides high-quality reading passages, paired texts, vocabulary supports, and writing prompts for grades 9–12. Excellent for improving reading comprehension and analytical writing skills.

📖🎯 ReadTheory: Adaptive reading comprehension practice that automatically adjusts to students’ reading levels. Great for strengthening literacy skills and building reading stamina over the summer.

✍️🖊️ NoRedInk: Free grammar and writing practice platform focused on sentence structure, revision, editing, and writing mechanics through personalized activities.

📰🌎 Newsela: Provides current event articles and informational texts at multiple reading levels to help students strengthen literacy skills while exploring real-world topics.

📚🏛️ Project Gutenberg: Free digital library with thousands of classic novels, plays, poetry collections, and literary texts available online.

🎭📝 Poetry Foundation: Offers poems, articles, audio recordings, and educational resources that help students explore poetry and creative writing.

🧠📄 Purdue OWL: Excellent resource for writing support, grammar help, MLA/APA formatting, and research writing guidance for high school and college-bound students.

➗📘 Khan Academy: Free lessons, videos, and practice activities for Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, Precalculus, Calculus, SAT Prep, and more. Students can work at their own pace and receive immediate feedback and personalized recommendations.

💜📐 Purplemath: Offers easy-to-follow explanations and examples for Algebra and higher-level math topics. Helpful for students needing extra support or review.

📊📈 GeoGebra: Interactive math tools and activities that support graphing, geometry, algebra, and data analysis through visual learning experiences.

🧮✅ DeltaMath: Interactive math practice platform commonly used in high schools. Provides step-by-step support and targeted practice for Keystone-aligned math skills and advanced coursework.

📉💡 Desmos: An engaging graphing and math exploration tool that allows students to visualize functions, create graphs, and explore mathematical concepts interactively.

🔬🧪 CK-12 Foundation: Offers free digital textbooks, interactive simulations, and practice activities in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Engineering, and Computer Science.

⚛️🖥️ PhET Interactive Simulations: Interactive science and math simulations developed by the University of Colorado. Students can explore scientific concepts through hands-on virtual experiments and models.

🚀🛰️ NASA STEM Engagement: Provides free STEM activities, videos, engineering challenges, and career exploration opportunities connected to space science and technology.

💻👩‍💻 Code.org: Introduces students to coding and computer science through beginner-friendly courses in programming, app development, web design, and problem solving.

🎓🔬MIT OpenCourseWare: Provides free access to course materials, lectures, and STEM content from MIT, allowing advanced students to explore college-level learning.

🧬🔍 ExploreLearning Gizmos: Offers free access to selected STEM simulations and virtual labs that support inquiry-based science and math learning.

🌍🦁 National Geographic Education: Features interactive science, geography, environmental science, and exploration resources for students interested in real-world scientific learning.

⚙️🤔 HowStuffWorks: Explains scientific concepts, engineering, technology, and everyday systems through engaging articles and videos.

🏛️🗳️ iCivics: Interactive civics and government activities that help students learn about democracy, law, elections, and citizenship through engaging games and simulations.

🖼️📜 Smithsonian Learning Lab: Free collections of primary sources, virtual exhibits, historical resources, and art-based learning activities from the Smithsonian Institution.

📚🗺️ Library of Congress Digital Collections: Provides free access to historical documents, photographs, maps, and primary sources that support research and historical inquiry.

🎥📚Crash Course: Educational video series covering history, government, literature, science, economics, and more through engaging short lessons.

💡🎤 TED-Ed: Features short educational videos and lessons on history, culture, philosophy, science, and global issues.

🎓📘 College Board AP Students: Provides free AP study resources, exam preparation materials, course information, and college planning support for high school students.

📗💻 OpenStax: Free online textbooks and learning resources for advanced high school and college-level courses, including science, math, economics, and history.

👥🧠 Schoolhouse.world: Free peer tutoring and SAT preparation platform founded by Sal Khan. Students can join live tutoring sessions and collaborative study groups.

🏫🎯 BigFuture by College Board: Provides college planning resources, career exploration tools, scholarship information, and college readiness supports.

🎓💸 Modern States: Offers free online courses that prepare students for CLEP exams, helping students potentially earn college credit at little or no cost.

💰💼 EverFi: Offers engaging lessons in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, career readiness, digital citizenship, and life skills that align well with personal finance learning goals.

⌨️🖥️ GCFLearnFree: Provides free tutorials on workplace and technology skills including Microsoft Office, Google tools, typing, career readiness, and personal finance.

👨‍💻🌐 freeCodeCamp: Provides free coding lessons and certifications in web development, Python, JavaScript, and computer science concepts.

⌨️⚡ TypingClub: Interactive typing practice program that helps students improve keyboarding speed and digital fluency skills.

💻📱 Codecademy Free Courses: Offers introductory coding lessons in programming languages such as Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

🧑‍💼📲 Google Applied Digital Skills: Project-based lessons that teach technology, communication, collaboration, and workplace readiness skills.

🎵🎹 Chrome Music Lab: Interactive music activities that allow students to explore rhythm, melody, composition, and sound through creative digital tools.

🎨🖌️ Canva for Education: Free design platform where students can create presentations, videos, posters, infographics, digital portfolios, and other creative projects.

🖼️🌍 Google Arts & Culture: Virtual museum tours, art collections, historical exhibits, and cultural learning experiences from institutions around the world.

🏺📸 Smithsonian Open Access: Allows students to explore and download millions of free images, artworks, and historical artifacts from Smithsonian collections.

We are excited to offer a number of different summer programs this year. Space is limited for each one. Please stay tuned to the district website for sign-up information:

Credit recovery options will be offered for high school students at Roosevelt this summer. Hours will be from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Graduating seniors will have the opportunity to sign up first and then other students will be offered enrollment. More information will be shared directly to qualified students and their families. 

Since students will have their Chromebooks over the summer, they have the opportunity to stay engaged and continue practicing learned skills from this past school year!

We created our Community Resource Page to ensure our families have access to reliable information and helpful resources all in one place. Here, you’ll find direct links to materials and information to support your family's needs in areas such as food and essentials resources, mental health resources, immigration resources, emergency hotlines, and more.

While this page provides valuable information, we also encourage families to visit our Community Partners Page to connect with local organizations offering services throughout our area and our Community Bulletin Board to get involved in community events, programs, and activities.

The mission of the Norristown Area School District is to educate and inspire each and every student to become a life-long learner, to strive for continued growth and personal excellence, and to demonstrate the skills and knowledge needed for success in a diverse, global society.