Response #3: What Should Count For Summer Reading?

NOTE: Dr. Macaluso's post is in response to the introduction post, "What Should "Count" for Summer Reading" and follows Dr. Reynolds' post, "Choice and Possibility in Summer Reading" and public librarian Stephanie Schott's post "What 'Counts' as Reading". We will be posting a response next Tuesday and Thursday from various experts on literacy and literature. 

In my 20 years as an educator and teacher educator, I have participated in and witnessed a plethora of summer reading policies. They run the gamut from no policy (yes, some schools choose not to give summer reading work) to optional reading suggestions to required reading with associated assignments and/or formal assessments. More often than not, these policies are well-intentioned, either aimed at curbing the “summer slide” or inducing a habit of reading.

But I sometimes wonder if some of these policies can cause more harm than good. Will students associate the practice of reading with schooling and thus become averse to it? Will they see reading as a chore? Will they get everything out of the book they should or need to without support or instruction? Will they have a community with whom to discuss the book? Do they need to struggle through arduous classics like Shakespeare or Dickens during summer “beach read” season?  

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Early on in graduate school, I conducted a wide-scale survey of high school English teachers to determine their purposes behind text selection and literary instruction. The choices ranged from “reading cultural classics” to “alignment with standards” to “exposure to other perspectives” and so on.  However, the most surprising data point came out of the response that was chosen least often: “for the enjoyment and/or pleasure of reading.” This data point was devastating to me and certainly an opportunity for self-reflection: as an English teacher myself, I was mostly concerned with preparing my students for college rather than making sure they always enjoyed the experience of reading.

As I reflect on my own reading experiences, I realize that I came to enjoy reading – as a hobby, as an appetite – later in my life because I had to disentangle it from its associations with schooling. These experiences came during the summer months, when I had the freedom to pick-up a book of interest or grabbed the latest best-sellers in the form of Michael Crichton or John Grisham, and could actually enjoy the act of reading. Reading these best-sellers – which I didn’t even realize could have been written for someone like me – helped me to find out what types of topics I was interested in, something that also wasn’t necessarily fostered in school.

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As a father of four kids, I want nothing more than for them to enjoy the act of reading. So, I’ve appreciated summer reading policies where they have been encouraged to explore and validate their interests through books, choose from a wide range of types of texts, and learn about all that’s “out there” when it comes to the literary imagination. For example, one of my child’s teachers gave him a “Book Bingo Board” to complete over the summer, with a range of text of types and topics, followed with a brief and low-stakes writing task. This didn’t feel like an undue burden of work and actually helped him to discover his reading interests! Another high school at which I worked simply recommended three best-sellers per grade level. Students could choose to take a low-stakes “comprehension test” on any or all of the books upon their return to school for extra credit to start out the year. Again, the purpose here was not to force a certainly type, genre, or experience of reading. Rather, this policy wanted to create conditions where students may find what’s interesting and enjoyable about reading. I loved that.

In a recent longitudinal study conducted over four years and across four either-grade English language arts classrooms (Ivey & Johnston, 2023), researchers examined what happened when teachers stopped assigning any particular book and instead gave students wide access to books written for young adults, let them choose what to read (or not), and gave them time to read and openly discuss the books. The result? Students read “like crazy” in and out of school, increasing their reading achievement.  Further, students reported that reading made them happier!

For our kids (and our teachers!), summer is supposed to be a time of rest, relaxation, joy, freedom, and so on. Let’s hope for summer reading policies that can feel the same way!

REFERENCES

Ivey, G., & Johnston, P. (2023). Teens choosing to read: Fostering social, emotional, and intellectual growth through books. Teachers College Press.