School's Out for Summer!

Teaching Pre K-8, May 2006 by Drasek, Lisa Von

Summer reading can be a chore for everyone - here's how to turn it around into something fun

As we wind down the school year, there's one task that presents itself that can be either an opportunity or a bore - summer reading.

A matter of choice

Richard Allington is a professor of education at the University of Tennessee and President of the International Reading Association. He and colleague Anne McGill-Franzen have been studying the impact of summer reading, or the lack of it, on children's reading achievement. "At this point it seems safe to conclude that children who don't read during summer vacation experience a summer reading loss. The loss is typically one of several months on standardized reading tests. But such small losses accumulate to substantial losses over time. On the other hand, children who read several books during the summer months experience no such loss and may actually find their scores on standardized tests improve a bit." ("Summer Reading Loss and What to Do" www.cbcbooks.org/cbcmagazine/per spectives/200511.html)

Allington asks us to consider that even with summer reading promotion and school-based requirements, students often resist reading during the summer months. He suggests access to high-interest reading and light, fun books.

A perfect match

Teachers and school librarians have a wonderful chance to partner with their local public children's librarians who are putting together their summer reading programs right now. These children's librarians are looking for opportunities to collaborate with their community schools to get the word out about their summer programs. Many of these public libraries are Reading Is Fundamental distribution sites that provide free books to children.

Reading Is Fundamental is celebrating their fortieth anniversary. Their website (www.rif.org/educators/articles/ what_can_families_do.mspx) has a great article called "What Can Families Do to Keep Children Reading During the Summer?" This article, written by Laura J. Colker, gives wonderful suggestions that can be incorporated in a letter home to students' families encouraging their support of summer reading efforts.

Read and share

Summer leaves lots of time for kids to enjoy fun activities such as going to the park, seeing a movie or going to the beach. Why not also encourage them to read a book about the activity? If a child is going to a baseball game, suggest that he or she read a book about his or her favorite player beforehand. In the car or over a hot dog, they'll have lots of time to talk about the book and the game with their parents.

Take the lead

Parents can read the newspaper at breakfast, pick up a magazine at the doctor's office and stuff a paperback into their beach bag. If kids see the adults around them reading often, they'll understand that literature can be a fun and important part of their summer days. Encouraging parents to talk with their kids about what they've read also lets the child know that reading is an important part of life.

A list of lists

Our school's policy is self-selection of summer reading titles from an extensive list of age-appropriate books. I give as much guidance as needed.

For grades preK-K:

http://streetcat.bankstreet.edu/html/ lower.html

For grades first through fourth:

http://streetcat.bankstreet.edu/html/ middle.html

For grades fifth through eighth:

http://streetcat.bankstreet.edu/html/ upper.html

For more lists of recommended children's books, visit the following sites:

www.ala.org/ALSCTemplate.cfm? section =ALSC

(Click on "Awards & Scholarships") This section of the American Library Association (ALA) website lists awardwinning books, authors and illustrators.

www.reading.org/resources/ tools/choices.html

Three lists from the International Reading Association Children's Book Council Joint Committee that are available include Children's Choices, Teacher's Choices and Young Adults' Choices,

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/ recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

The website for the New York Public Library lists "100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know."

Looking for new children's books from the past year? The Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education's 2006 edition of "The Best Children's Books of the Year" is one of the most comprehensive annotated book lists for children, aged infant-14. The committee reviews over 4,000 titles each year for accuracy and literary quality and considers their emotional impact on children. It chooses the best 600 books, both fiction and nonfiction, which it lists according to age and category. To order online go to www.bankstreet books.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s =localinterest&page=113051

Lisa Von Drasek is Children's Librarian at the Bank Street College of Education in New York, NY.

E-mail: Lisa@TeachingK-8.com