I’ve already started to dream about getting back to a summer of reading. My eight weeks away from the classroom allow me to devour trashy novels, great literary classics, memoirs, and professional development texts. I Love It.
As temperatures here in PA plunge to the twenties once again, those days feel so far away, but right now is the time to start thinking and talking about summer reading for our students.
The work of summer reading is done between September and June. Let me say that again…The work of summer reading is done between September and June. We have no control over what happens in the reading lives of our students once they leave us for the beach and the pool or summer jobs and summer camps.
It’s our job to build a culture of reading for the months that we spend with them face to face, and we can cross our fingers that they will take our gift of reading and continue to utilize all the tools we’ve so carefully given them to continue to be readers in the summer.
My department has been evaluating our summer reading program for several years now, though we are aware of some summer reading stigmas. We’ve tried so many different ways to get kids to read: one book, one school; short lists of suggested titles; long lists of suggested titles; required titles; requirements by grade; requirements by level; free choice. We surveyed kids anonymously, informally, and formally after each summer and found the same frustrating results. Kids just weren’t reading.
It never sat well with me that I had to begin a new school year with more than 100 essays, projects, or journals to grade for students I had just met. And I never got comfortable giving zeros to kids who refused to read what last year’s teacher assigned over the summer. Welcome to my class, kiddo. Here’s your zero. Now spend the first marking period trying to recover.
As a reader, I don’t want to be told what to read. I absolutely refused to crack open Julius Caesar and A Tale of Two Cities in 10th grade. On the Labor Day weekend before senior year, I vividly remember trying to figure out what The Scarlet Letter was about so I could take a test upon our return to school while my family was outside having a cookout.
I skated by with that lovely little yellow Cliffs Notes booklet and some helpful friends who actually read a few pages here and there. Once we discussed the book in class together, I went back and read it on my own and truly did enjoy it, but it was not something I wanted to struggle through in August. Instead, I carried bestsellers in my beach bag and spent hours inside or outside just reading for fun.
So why, as a teacher, was I continuing to tell kids exactly what they should be reading over the summer? And why, when I was allowing for some choice, were kids still not reading? Is summer reading something we should even be continuing and enforcing? These are tough questions that, when addressed in a district or department, can shake teachers to their core.
Bill Gates understood the importance of summer reading, and let me share with you some of the things I’ve come to understand about the success or failure of summer reading programs as we’ve asked these questions at my school and in my district.
Define the goal and purpose
What is our goal for our readers? What is the purpose of summer reading? And do these two things align? These can be surprisingly difficult and divisive questions in some departments, and let’s not forget that reading books is one of the best leisure activities!
As teachers, don’t we all desire to create habits of lifelong readers, to instill a love of reading, to help students increase or at least maintain reading fluency and stamina, and avoid the “summer slide”? However, especially at the high school level, the purpose of summer reading is often to jumpstart our curriculum and to expose students to core curricular texts. Do these two things align? I do not believe they can.
If I want to reach the goals I have for my readers in authentic and realistic ways, I must provide choice. There are certainly times during the school year when readers should be expected to engage in required reading, but they must do this in a supported environment.
High school readers are still developing readers. While we can gradually increase the responsibility of reading to the students as they move through middle and high school, I know from my 19 years in the classroom that even seniors still need supported reading instruction.
Summer Expectations
Summer is not the time to cover classics that kids are not developmentally ready for. If students have trouble engaging in the reading of that whole class novel we teach every year, imagine their difficulty when they try to read a challenging text in the summertime on their own. Assigning those novels over the summer is almost a guarantee that students will SparkNote their way through the basic plot of the book.
Summer is not the time to jump-start our curriculum or assign titles based on what we don’t have time to teach but think kids should read. Let’s reconsider the idea of “depth, not breadth” and recognize that being able to check off a list of texts that kids have been assigned to read does not mean they engaged with those texts in meaningful ways.
Summer is not the time to assign titles that we think will make our school look good, or our curriculum appear to be rigorous. I had a funny moment with a friend who teaches in a neighboring and competitive district. She said her department continues to do summer reading in the traditional way of assigning texts because my district does it that way too. Guess what? My district has been doing it traditionally because her district was too! That’s downright silly when teachers in both districts are frustrated with the results!
Summer is not the time to dictate what students should be reading without regard for individual reading levels and IEPs. The “one book fits all” philosophy is just not ok. I am raising a child who was assigned one option for summer reading, and that book was 4 grade levels above her documented reading level. Had she chosen that book to read, she may have persevered because of interest. But considering she is not a fan of the genre, it was too difficult and created yet another negative experience with reading for a struggling reader.
Summer is not the time to assign our personal favorites. No matter how much I like the person who recommends it, I am not going to pick up and enjoy a history book. I’m just not. It’s not my style. As an English teacher, I must remember that I am not teaching all English majors.
My students have such a wide variety of preferences, and summer is a great time to let them explore what they enjoy. Nine in ten kids say they are more likely to finish a book they picked out themselves. During the school year, I can teach the books that I feel passionate about, and I can convey that passion and enthusiasm to my students. But please, do not tell me I have to read your favorite book. I won’t do it unless it’s something that truly interests me.
Summer is the time for students to practice the skills they’ve attained during the school year. In my classroom, students have learned to set goals, monitor their reading lives, choose great books, and find ways to maintain reading stamina.
When I send them off in June, I hope that they will continue to apply these skills on their own. This takes hard work and strategic planning during the school year. I’ve prioritized reading for my students. The assigning of a text to my students for summer reading did not prioritize anything related to developing readers.