Stop the summer reading slide: kids who don't read over the summer can lose ground. Here's how to keep books in their hands and skills at a peak

Instructor, May-June, 2005 by Meg Lundstrom

When you wave goodbye to your students as they head off for summer vacation, you might just be bidding farewell to some of their hard-won gains in reading skills. The "summer slide" is well-documented by research: Unless students read regularly during the break, they fall behind about three months in their reading achievement.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

As teachers know from experience, particularly vulnerable are low-income students, who may already be struggling. In fact, the losses add up and "by middle school, produce a cumulative lag of two or more years, which accounts for 80 to 100 percent of the achievement gap between low- and middle-income students," says reading expert Richard Allington, Ph.D., of the University of Tennessee. The good news is that the latest research shows children who read at least four books over the summer maintain or even increase their skills.

Teachers Need Allies

Although teachers have always encouraged their students to read during the summer, other groups are joining the push. "What's striking now is that there's a much more concerted effort at the federal, state, and district levels to encourage kids to read in the summer," says reading researcher Jimmy Kim, Ph.D., of the University of California at Irvine. The No Child Left Behind Summer Reading Achievers pilot program distributed free books last summer to children in 10 cities. Those children who read 10 books were given prizes. Connecticut gives its schools cash incentives if 60 percent of their students turn in a summer reading journal. Joining the effort, Scholastic Inc. is kicking off a major online campaign, Summer Reading Counts! (www.scholastic.com/summerreading), which helps parents and teachers boost their kids' reading. "We're dedicated to helping kids be the best readers they can be," says Sylvia Barsotti, Scholastic.com editor in chief.

The Closer the Better

To be spurred into reading, some kids simply need to get their hands on good books that hold their interest, the research shows. For suburban kids with bookcases in their bedrooms and libraries or bookstores nearby, that usually isn't a problem. But for inner-city kids, public-library use drops off if the library is more than six blocks from their homes (compared with two miles for middle-class kids). Add to that the finding that 61 percent of low-income families have no children's books at home, and it's clear why access to the school or classroom library can be key.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"Don't lock up the books all summer. It's often the best collection of age-appropriate books around," advises Allington. Some schools open their libraries one afternoon each week. Others have regular "book fair" evenings at which kids buy, borrow, or exchange books. At some schools, teachers set up a "Take a book/leave a book" rack filled with inexpensive paperbacks outside the front doors of the school.

One simple idea is to allow children to take four or five classroom books home for the summer. Nancy Weatherspoon, a retired reading teacher in Alderson, California, gave students her phone number. "They'd call me and I'd meet them at school so they could take out as many books as they wanted," she says. In one Illinois district, children win prizes by leaving messages on the school's answering machine, reading from books or summarizing them.

Motivation Is Key

Even if children have books in hand, they have lots of competing interests, from sports to television and video games. To motivate them to read, educators use both sticks and carrots.

Many schools require summer book reports, or ask parents to verify that their children have read specific books. Kim's research in a large suburban district shows this plan works somewhat. Required book reports were turned in, at most, 45 percent of the time. Mandating specific books also has a danger: It can turn kids off reading for pleasure, particularly if the books are too difficult. "The research has absolutely nothing good to say about forcing hard reading on kids," Allington says. "Why should we be surprised? If adults preferred hard reading, The Economist would be flying off the shelves of 7-Elevens."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

One common "carrot" approach often used by public libraries is giving prizes, books, and other incentives for reading a certain number of books. But, Kim says, it may encourage children to "read only easy books to win prizes and to read books rapidly with little comprehension."

Some research shows that the best way to encourage children to read outside of school is to increase access to books they really want to read--which are often different from the books teachers and parents pick out for them. In a University of Florida study conducted by Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen, Ph.D., low-income children were asked to select 15 books from 400 choices. The boys most often chose humor or pop-culture titles such as Captain Underpants and books about rapper Lil' Romeo; girls chose books about actress Hilary Duff, and singing group Destiny's Child. They also often picked kid-friendly series (such as Junie B. Jones), and, notably, nonfiction books about sports and animals.