The public library is a treasure

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/08/03/summer-reading-advice-school/

Summer reading began in the 1890s as a means to encourage children to use the library and build strong reading habits. It was intended for students who were not otherwise needed as farm hands in the hottest months.

It makes summer learning more fun, rather than a chore, and showing kids that learning can be fun reaches into the school year.

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On Parenting

Summer reading struggles? Here’s how to help your child now and into the school year.

By Kendra Stanton Lee

August 3, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EDT

Assigned summer reading, the dread or delight of the season depending on whom you ask, is fraught. It can stir a mix of angst and interest, particularly after an unprecedented 2020-2021 school year.

Summer reading began in the 1890s as a means to encourage children to use the library and build strong reading habits. It was intended for students who were not otherwise needed as farm hands in the hottest months.

Ironically, assigned summer reading can still feel like putting one’s hands to the plow, especially for children who have reading challenges.

Here is some advice that parents and caregivers can consider as they support their children through summer reading and into the school year.

Consider a creative approach to summer reading

Julie Joyce of Milton, Mass., whose children are 10 and 11, supports her kids’ summer reading but also observes a solid break. “From the day they get out of school until the July 4th holiday, they are on vacation. That’s time to do what they want — sleep in, play on their iPad,” she says.

For the rest of summer, Joyce and her family have a weekly tradition that promotes learning, but isn’t a traditional summer reading assignment.“My son is dyslexic, so reading is not something he likes to do, but he does enjoy learning about different countries and people,” said Joyce.

And so each week, Joyce, her husband, and children pull names of countries from a hat and decide on a day to share a brief report about their country with each other. “It’s kind of fun,” Joyce says. “Spending 20 minutes looking up the language, location, who colonized it — you can learn a lot about a country.”

This tactic is a good one, says Kim Greene, managing editor of Understood.org, a non-profit that provides resources and community centered on learning differences. “I would say that ‘choice’ is the number one word to keep in mind where summer reading is concerned.” Choices like the ones Joyce came up with can encourage kids to read and research. It makes summer learning more fun, rather than a chore, and showing kids that learning can be fun reaches into the school year.

When it comes to reading choices, Greene says, parents and kids should look beyond chapter books and include magazines and graphic novels. This is also a great way, once school starts, to help them remember not all reading involves chapter books. If a child becomes hooked on reading material they like, even if it’s not a traditional chapter book, it can lead to a love of reading in general.

Greene recommends the Bookfinder (which partners with Understood) to help a child find something they like. “If a child loved the Dav Pilkey Dog Man books,” Greene explains, parents and children can use the tool to find similar books. “This can create a chain of positive reading experiences that leads to a different understanding of reading, that leads them to engage reading in the future."

Summer reading doesn’t have to mean a physical book

With learning differences like dyslexia and ADHD adding strain to traditional novel reading for some children, it’s good to know there are other resources. The SYNC program is a free audio program for teenagers, offering two free audiobooks through the Sora app during the summer months. Audiobooks, graphic novels, and podcasts expand the media library for students who don’t naturally gravitate toward books in print.

Joyce says the pain of summer reading for her son with dyslexia was intolerable, and so they got creative. “To force him to do something he already hates, to see him struggle, and to do it over the summer — I would much rather put on an Audible book and have him listen to it and get back to doing other things he likes.”

Audio books offer a great opportunity for kids, not only with summer reading, experts say. “When we expand the definition of text, we expand the skills [readers can build]," Greene says. "For kids with reading challenges, they may be great at comprehension, but the ability to decode words in the text is getting in the way of things. It’s not that the audio book is a light version — it’s just the way they can access a text.”

Greene noted that if a child has an individualized educational program (IEP), it should apply to summer reading, as well.

Concern for this kind of reading support over the summer is a passion project for Donalyn Miller, former Scholastic Book Fairs’ Ambassador of Independent Reading Advocacy and author of The Book Whisperer. “If a child needs support to read during the school year, and there is an expectation of reading during the summer, do we cut off that assistive support the last day of school?," Miller says. "Do we cut off access to the school library on the last day of school?”

Miller works with school and public librarians to expand access to long-term loans and assistive technologies for young readers. “The world got a lot smaller for everyone last year, but the book keeps the world a little wider for us," Miller says. "Books are one of the best ways to make the world bigger and to meet all those people we can’t see.”

Accessibility is a key factor in keeping kids reading

During a pandemic year when libraries and schools were closed or operating at limited capacity, the concept of a “reading desert” touched many communities. The deserts persist particularly in rural and/or low-income communities. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey indicated that less than two-thirds of Americans in rural areas are without an internet connection at home, and the majority of Americans with households incomes below $30,000 do not have a computer or smartphone.

“I talked to librarians this week in East Texas who were telling me that they had wifi at the school and families were coming down in the school parking lot so that their kid could access the materials needed for the week," Miller says.

Thus, while some parents may protest podcasts or magazines as lackluster summer reading options, for some children, this media may be the most accessible. Podcasts, with unlimited downloads, can be more accessible than even a library book, as library branches will often have a limited number of copies, both hard copies and digital. Looking at Kirkus Review's recommended Middle Grade novels for the summer, the books retail from $5.99-$14.99, which can still be prohibitive for families with multiple children in school. Movements toward consolidating public student ID cards and library cards, such as cities like Boston and Washington D.C. have done, helps to expand access to reading materials, as well.

“I think sometimes as parents we roll our eyes and complain about kids’ reading choices when they do read. Then the poor kid is buried in adult expectations,” said Miller, “If kids can’t read what they want in the summer, when can they?”

Improving reading stamina is an important goal, but not the only one

The National Council of Teachers of English issued a position statement in 2019 on independent reading. The NCTE maintains that “independent reading” of books is the best way to develop reading stamina, which is necessary for college and career readiness.

Of course, reading stamina is only one competency that summer reading can help to improve. If “summer learning loss” or “summer slide” is the chief focus, it is easy to see how summer reading could become a point of anxiety.

Ryan Bani Tahmaseb, who directs a private elementary school library in Weston, Mas., says that if reading stamina is a goal, it needs to couple with a child’s reading interest. “I think we’re still trying to force kids to read books that are not about topics that they’re interested in,” he says. “This is not to say that kids can’t find a passion for books that are set in places or time periods that are different from their own, but I just think we’re not asking enough collectively what group of kids do I have right now? What are they interested in? Generally speaking, we don’t give them enough options.”

Tahmaseb, whose book The 21st Century School Library will release this fall, said parents should lean on the resources of school librarians and booksellers to help find books that are of interest to their children. “When parents e-mail me for suggestions on books for their child, that’s ideal. That gives me a chance to see what that kid has checked out in the past,” says Tahmaseb, who, along with his assistant, can then prepare a stack of books the child might like.

The public library is a treasure

In addition to the school library, public libraries remain one of the most important resources for everything from lending books to serving as a free meal or snack site for children. Plenty of public library summer reading programs offer prizes and other recognition for participants, but these programs largely target younger readers. Understood created a bingo board intended for younger children with a variety of different reading challenges.

To engage older children, The National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) suggests a household reward system to incentivize tweens and teens to complete learning challenges. The NSLA suggests creating a family currency that kids can cash in for privileges and experiences of their choice.

But don’t discount the importance of community even with independent reading, said Miller. “For a lot of readers, reading is surprisingly social. They get support from other readers.”

Greene of Understood agrees. If parents are up to the task, organizing a small, informal book club that meets to talk about a book can bring the social piece back into reading. It can help throughout the school year, as well.

Whether through the open library door or a podcast app, summer reading presents an ever growing array of options for readers of every age. These options can spark an interest that reaches into the school year, setting the groundwork for reading that is fun, not just work.