6 Winter Break Reading Activities

Keep calm and learn on with these festive, fun winter break reading activities.

While school may recess for the holidays, the learning doesn’t have to stop! The long winter break can be an opportunity to introduce some new – and festive – activities to help improve their reading skills. In this post, we’ll share our suggestions that can be fun for the whole family, in addition to reading activities that your child can complete on their own, including:

1. Play board games with spelling or reading components
2. Write letters
3. Cook or bake holiday recipes
4. Have snowy day reading time
5. Introduce journaling
6. Complete the winter break reading challenge

Keep reading to learn more about these winter break reading activities below.

Play board games with spelling or reading components

Playing board games as a family can help you enjoy some fun together over the holidays while working on reading skills in the process. Some examples of games that have a reading, spelling, or storytelling components are Tall Tales, Scrabble, Boggle, Sequence Letters, and Scattergories. These games are sure to help your child discover that learning can be fun and are perfect ways to make memories during winter break!

Write letters

Another winter break reading activity that can help your child with literacy is writing letters. You can have them hand-write thank you notes to relatives and friends for any gifts they may have received during the holidays, write a letter to Santa, or write a blurb for your family’s holiday card “year in review.” If they’re feeling especially creative, consider suggesting they draw a design on the letter or card to make this learning activity even more fun!

Cook or bake holiday recipes

Including your child in holiday cooking and baking is another way to help improve your child’s reading skills over the winter break. Depending on your child’s age, interest, and skill level, ask them to read recipes out loud as you complete each step, or invite them to read and cook under your supervision at the same time. Teach them any words they don’t recognize – all while they learn new recipes and develop new skills they can use for years to come.

Have snowy day reading time

A cold, snowy day can be the perfect time to curl up with your child and a book. Consider incorporating a reading helper for kids to make this winter break reading activity even more effective. For instance, the Toobaloo whisper phone provides instant auditory feedback that can help children develop critical reading skills such as fluency, reading comprehension, and pronunciation. By speaking softly into the tool, your child can hear themselves and instantly self-correct.

The Eye Lighter is a ruler-shaped eye-tracking tool that highlights multiple lines of text or underlines a single sentence to help prevent them from losing their place. This reading helper for kids also promotes reading comprehension and fluency, and can also be used to improve focus and speed-reading skills.  

Introduce journaling

Consider introducing your child to a new literacy-centric hobby like journaling. With the end of the calendar year upon us, the close of the fall semester, and the exciting holiday season to enjoy, this time of year brings plenty of opportunities for reflection and appreciation. Here are ten topic ideas to get the pen or pencil flowing:

1. What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?
2. What traditions does your family have for the holiday, and which is your favorite? Will you continue them when you’re older?
3. What did you learn so far this year at school? What’s your favorite recess activity in the winter snow?
4. What’s your favorite holiday book or movie? What about your favorite book you read this year? And what made it so good?
5. Have you ever left cookies for Santa? Did he eat them? What’s your favorite holiday treat?
6. Write a story about Ruldoph’s cousin, the reindeer who loves to sing.
7. If you could give a gift to the world, what would it be?
8. What would you do if you visited the North Pole?
9. What would it be like to live in a gingerbread house?
10. If you were one of Santa’s helper elves, what kind of toys would you build?

Complete the winter break reading challenge

Invite your child to complete the Scholastic winter break reading challenge. This challenge asks children to complete the following over winter break:

• Read one book and watch the movie adaption
• Read five picture books to a younger relative, friend, or stuffed animal
• Find out three cool facts about your favorite author
• Read a book from a new author or a new genre or series
• Talk about reading three different times with three different people

These five tasks can challenge your child to improve their reading skills in a manner that’s both attainable and fun!

These winter break reading activities are sure to inspire a love of reading while enjoying days off from school. To help the children in your life who struggle with reading or speech, shop our affordable learning and reading tools for kids online, or call our customer service team at 877.819.2541. For more reading activities, tools, tips, and tricks, check out our blog.

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