Many teachers jump into summer tutoring because they have a heart for helping students. But they also want their sessions to feel purposeful, not like a frantic race against the clock, or something they have to spend hours preparing for!

The goal of summer tutoring isn’t to recreate the high-pressure environment of the school year. It’s to help students find their footing in reading in a way that feels manageable and, dare I say, fun!

Summer tutoring usually comes with a limited schedule (e.g. you only get an hour with a student each week) and students who are all over the map with their needs.

You’re likely wondering: What should each lesson look like? How do I balance phonics and comprehension without burning out? And how do I keep planning from eating up my own summer break?

The good news? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to see real growth. Success usually comes down to having a simple, repeatable routine that you can lean on.

In this blog post, we’ll walk through how to plan lessons that stay focused and flexible, while keeping the focus exactly where it belongs: on what your students need most.

Beat the “Summer Slide”

Summer tutoring isn’t just about extra practice; it’s about protection. Research shows that without intentional engagement, students can lose significant ground during the break.

“Research suggests that students can lose between 20% and 30% of their school-year gains in reading over the summer months” (Allensworth & Schwartz, 2020).

Still, you don’t have to work 40 hours a week to stop the slide. Focused, short bursts of intervention are often all a student needs to stay on track when school starts again. To make those “short bursts” count, you need a plan that targets the students’ current reading gaps.

Start By Gathering Baseline Data

The best tutoring sessions start with a clear picture of exactly where a student is stuck. Instead of guessing, spend part of your first session getting a quick snapshot of their skills.

This doesn’t have to be a formal “test” that stresses them out. You can quickly check:

• Word Reading: Can they decode the patterns you’d expect for their grade?
• Spelling: Are there specific phonics patterns they’re consistently missing?
• Fluency: Does their reading sound smooth, or are they working too hard to sound out every word? What about words read correctly per minute?

These quick checks help you zero in on the foundational “must-haves,” making it much easier to track progress over the summer and celebrate wins with the student. The assessments above come from my Reading Intervention Collaborative membership, which is great for summer tutoring and reading instruction throughout the school year.

As Louisa Moats said,

“Effective reading instruction begins with a clear understanding of what students know and what they need to learn next.”

Keep Lessons Short, Predictable, and Focused

Students (and teachers!) do better when they know what’s coming next. When a lesson is predictable, students can spend their mental energy on the content rather than trying to figure out the instructions.

Inside the Reading Intervention Collaborative (RIC), we have lesson templates that work for both in-person and virtual sessions.

A Peek Inside a Typical Session

Here is an example of a simple flow you can use to keep your lessons on track without over-planning! (Note that this example is for a student who struggles with decoding / word reading, although comprehension is still addressed.)

1. Quick Warm-up (1 min): A fast “ear training” activity—segmenting or blending sounds aloud.
2. Review (2-3 mins): Flipping through a few sound or word cards from the previous lesson. If a child is reluctant to get started with our sessions, I’ll actually do this first and start off with a review board game (like one from the RIC).
3. Blending Practice: Using blending drills or blending lines to help students focus on the print, not just guessing based on the first letter.
4. The New Skill: Introduce a phonics pattern using something tactile, like tracing or magnetic letters.
5. Reading & Writing: Practice the skill by reading sentences and then doing a little “dictation” (you say the word, they write it).
6. The “Big Picture” (Comprehension): Read a short, decodable story that uses the skill you just practiced. Talk about the story to make sure they’re actually understanding what they read. Or, if students know most of their phonics skills,
7. New high frequency word(s): Introduce a new word or two. Make sure to address the sounds in the word (even if it’s irregular!), how the word is spelled, and the meaning of the word. Learn more about my process here.

Because this structure stays the same, you just swap out the words or the story. It saves you hours of prep and helps students feel successful.

If I’m working with a student struggling with fluency, I’ll determine if word reading accuracy and phonics knowledge are issues. If they are, our lesson will look largely the same as what is described above (it would also include repeated readings of words, sentences, and text). However, if the fluency issue is really reading speed, then I’ll place more of an emphasis on repeated readings of word lists and sentences, as well as complete texts. I describe this in more detail in the RIC.

If I’m working with a student who struggles with comprehension, we’ll read a grade level text, work on vocabulary within that text, and work on a strategy like inferring or asking questions. We have plenty of graphic organizers and supports for this in the RIC, too.

Tools to Keep You (and Families) Organized

Tutoring is more than just the 30 or 60 minutes you spend with the student. To make it stick, you need easy ways to communicate with parents.

In the RIC, we provide a few resources that go beyond the tutoring session:

• Comprehension Cheat Sheets: Give these to parents so they know exactly what to ask their kids during bedtime reading.
• The “Quick Recap” Form: A simple way to tell parents, “Here’s what we did today, and here’s one thing to practice.”
• Tutoring Homework Form
  Keeps at-home practice focused and manageable. Tutors use it to assign short, targeted work that aligns directly with what was taught.

Why Educators Use the RIC for the Summer

You shouldn’t have to spend your summer scouring the internet for decodable passages or assessment forms!

Inside the Reading Intervention Collaborative, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you. Tutors get access to:

• Baseline Assessments to see exactly where to start.
• Grab-and-Go Phonics Packets with posters, games, and stories.
• Fluency Tools, like passages and fluency rubrics.
• Virtual & In-Person Templates so you’re ready to go in minutes.

Building Confidence for the Fall

Summer tutoring isn’t about “cramming.” It’s about building a bridge so that when it’s time for the first day of school, your students feel like they’ve got this. When your lessons are structured and steady, students don’t just improve their reading—they improve their belief in themselves.

Want your summer back? If you’re ready to stop over-planning and start using ready-to-go templates and resources designed by experts, come join us!

Learn more about the Reading Intervention Collaborative here!

References

Allensworth, E. M., & Schwartz, N. (2020). School practices to address student learning loss (EdResearch for Recovery Project Brief No. 1). Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

Moats, L. C. (2020). Teaching reading is rocket science (2020 edition). American Federation of Teachers.