Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

It won’t be long before students are back in schools all around Troup County. In fact, the summer is running low on weeks remaining and before we know it the first day of school will be here.

Throughout the summer, the biggest fear of those in education is that students will forget some of what they learned while out of school. The dreaded summer slide results in kids having to relearn materials and can result in falling behind classmates.

The best, most organized parents read with their children every single night. They are able to somehow get off work at just the right time, beat traffic home, get the house clean, pay their bills and then find 30 minutes to read with their children every night of the week at bedtime.

Although we think it’s safe to say every parent reading this tries to be the best parent, we’re guessing a few are laughing at the idea of everything going that perfect. We all know life just doesn’t go that way.

But the importance of reading can’t be overshadowed by those other issues. Avoiding the summer slide usually works best by having a routine for the end of summer — not cramming in a bunch of reading sessions at the very end — but we’re guessing anything will help.

The slide is most impactful on younger children, who are learning letters, numbers, new words, addition, subtraction and problem-solving skills they’ll build on in the years ahead.

Many teachers send home a checklist for what students need to know by the time they start the next grade — things to work on over the summer. For instance, it might say that Sally needs to know how to tie her own shoes.

Parents, we recommend finding those lists and going over them. We recommend trying to find a few minutes each night to pull a good book off the shelf and read.

It won’t be long before students are back in the classroom, trying to remember everything they learned last year. Nobody wants their child to fall behind, especially in reading.

Reading now will only help.