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Summer Reading, How do you feel about requiring in for students? |
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 Apr 21 2006, 12:59 PM
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Waiting for Wednesdays
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Our school district has always required students who are in the Gifted and Talented Program and any advanced placement programs to participate in a summer reading program. To make the program more meaningful we have had the students respond in journals about their reading. We've also offered reading groups in partnership with our local librarians to help the kids benefit from the reading.
This year I have the honor (yes that is sarcasm) of retooling this program for our district. I have come up with what I think is an interesting program -- using The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, along with a choice of one of 10 novels about teen-heroes. The students will respond in a forum (I'm currently setting it up) to guided questions from a team of teachers.
As I sat there today and worked on this forum I had another teacher tell me that they felt it was unfair to require reading during the summer. As a student I always had summer reading, as a teacher it's always been a requirement of the districts I taught in.
We all know why there are summer reading programs. Students lose skills and spend weeks trying to rebuild them. This is especially true of both reading and math. The purpose of these programs has always been to allow the student to maintain their skill level over the long break without the classroom activities.
How do you guys feel about summer reading for students? Is is fair to the kids, the parents, or the teachers that have to check the assignments? Other things to consider, should the reading be specific, should it be age specific or ability driven, should there be written assignments, and should they have summer math problems as well?
There are way to many thoughts there to put in a poll, so I made the poll very specific, but tell me how you feel about required summer reading for students? (I also asked about secondary school students -- 12 years of age and up)
Doris
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Apr 21 2006, 01:24 PM
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Junior Dishwasher at The Leaky Cauldron
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I'm not a teacher, but as I was reading your post, a couple of things struck me, one being that the G/T and AP students were requried to do summer reading. This is just my humble opinion, but I feel that they are requring the wrong students to do that. I may be in the miniority here, but if I had to choose a group (and I hate saying this because it's labeling) that was required to do summer reading, it should be the 'remedial' and 'average' students.
That said, I think all students should be required to do summer reading. Of course, I was always one of those kids who the teacher had to pull out of a book at the end of SSR or DEAR, and was encouraged NOT to bring a book outside for recess!
I'm not so sure how I feel about required summer practice for other subjects, like math and history. I'd kind of lean on the edge of remedial students being required to do that.
I worked as a teacher aid last year, and there was a summer program for the students. For some students who needed more attention, it was manditory. For others it was reccomended. Still others it was completely voluntary. Sadly, I left the school before I saw the program in action, but I hear it went very well.
Well, thats just my $.02. Sorry for the rambling nature of this post. 
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 Apr 21 2006, 01:44 PM
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President of the Order of the Bun
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Joined: 10:47am January 28, 2005
Location: Burlington, WI USA
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I, of course, fully support summer reading, as I run the youth summer reading program at our public library. I agree that ALL AGES AND LEVELS (including adults--we have an adult program as well) should continue reading to maintain their skills, but I also really believe reading needs to be fun again.
Somewhere along the lines we lost the sheer joy of a book. There's a thread in Waxflatter's about books you read in school, and most of the comments are negative--kids hate having to over analyze or discuss (certain) books to death. I support reading fluff every once in a while, especially if you can use the fluff to hook a child or teen onto another great piece of literature. For example, say they really enjoy Goosebumps; you can use this series as a base, and then suggest anything by John Bellairs, and gradually work them up to Edgar Allan Poe.
So I don't know that I would say they have to go through a list by the end of August, but they should log a certain number of hours, using a list if they need ideas. I love the idea of a buddy system, or using a book on tape/cd to follow along while reading or finding creative ways to get kids and teens (and adults, for that matter) to read.
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"Not the ruddy librarian again?" said Ron. p 218 GoF
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(from: Clue, the Movie)
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Apr 21 2006, 02:01 PM
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Chief Mischief-Maker
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I voted for summer reading for all, and here's why.
The ability to read is a wonderful gift; the joy of reading is something that never leaves you once you're hooked, I think. I was lucky enough to be introduced to reading at an early age; I can remember sitting on my dad's knee, and him holding my index finger under the words as he read from whatever he was reading - either one of my story books, or his newspaper, or something else he was reading. When the jumble of letters began to form into words, I was off - there was just no stopping me!! 
I work with adults who want to brush up their reading - and writing, spelling and maths amongst other things. Most of them aren't confident readers, and nearly all of them say that this is because they weren't encouraged at school, or they were asked to read things which didn't interest them. Personally speaking, as a tutor/teacher, I wouldn't mind marking extra assignments if this helped to foster a love of reading. Reading should be ability driven, I think - we've got books in our resources library which are geared towards emergent readers; this means that popular novels or even the "classics" are condensed into 2,000 words or so (sometimes more) and are made available to learners to encourage them to try something new. Just a bitesize chunk of a bigger book, if you like. So far, we've had good results with them. The key, though, is to find something they enjoy. If that means going through every book we have in our library, so be it, or maybe it means that I take them to our local libraries in the towns where they live and we have a look around the shelves for inspiration. It's a good way of overcoming their fears about reading being for "clever" people. Reading is universal - it's for anyone and everyone who wants to read.
I've also had great results with Philosopher's Stone in my groups. One young man I work with had seen the films but confided in me that he wasn't confident enough to try and read PS because he was scared that he wouldn't understand all the vocabulary. So I've been working with him on chapters of PS, usually one at a time; getting him to read slowly, and if he gets stuck, explaining the word, breaking it down into syllables, working on phonics, etc. He's been fascinated by it, and has now finished PS and has moved onto CoS. He's reading more and more on his own, and has even written his own theory about how the books end. Just one page, but from a young man who was so embarassed about his writing that he wouldn't even put pen to paper before, that is a huge step, and I'm delighted for him.
I also think that students should have summer maths problems. Again, speaking from my experience of working with adults, I find lots of people coming to me for help with budgeting and shopping, banking, paying bills, and it's terrifying for people when their own kids go to school, start bringing their homework home - and they find they can't cope with fractions, percentages, etc. Mind you, when they start asking me questions about algebra, that's when I look like this  but it's a learning curve for me too and I love it.
Finally, family literacies is another key area of interest for me. I'm trying to encourage parents to come along to groups to learn more about what their kids do in school, and to help them brush up their own skills if required so that they have the confidence to help out. Literacies is fundamental to everyday life - confidence, skills, self esteem, potential - and if summer reading can help improve student skills for the longer term and help them as they move on through school and out into the world, I'm all for it.
Whew - long post. Steps off soapbox ... 
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Proud Gryffindor   and OPAST member
"Hallows," murmured Dumbledore, "not Horcruxes. Precisely."
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Apr 21 2006, 09:28 PM
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Kibble Boy/Girl at the Magical Menagerie
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Location: Sin City, Babylon of the West, it's Vegas baby!
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My perspective on this is a little bit different, in that I teach at the Elementary level in Year-Round schools. However, both of my children are in 9-month schools (Elementary and High School), so I have a parent's perspective to consider as well. Having said all that, I am in support of summer reading programs for all students. The more advanced students will probably be reading anyway, and should get credit for their work. Those that do not fall into that category should be encouraged to continue reading.
I don't think I'm talking Chaucer or Tolstoy here of course, but more of the "reading for pleasure and enjoyment" category. There are a very large number of "fun" books that could be included on a suggested reading list, as well as more serious titles, and let the student decide where he or she wants to go with it. That presupposes a wide variety of genres and reading levels on such a list as well.
Additionally, I find that giving time goals, rather than page goals, allows students to work at their own level and speed, and can help increase the pleasure of reading (especially for slower readers). That is certainly the case with 5th grade students and weekly reading logs (again, consider my background--I require my students to read a minimum of 30 minutes a night, and don't give page goals), and I would think this carries over to secondary level as well.
Sorry, I feel like I'm rambling a little here. As an inveterate reader myself, I'm always in favor of things that increase literacy.
Edited because a teacher really should be able to spell, don't you think?
This post has been edited by WizardOfVegas: Apr 21 2006, 09:32 PM
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M.A.F.I.A. — S.Q.U.E.E — S.L.O.T.H.
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Apr 22 2006, 03:38 PM
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Professional Diagon Alley Window Shopper
Posts: 77
Joined: 12:06pm April 13, 2006
Location: The Burrow
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I will admit I am not a teacher, however I do have an opinion on this as I was an AP student and went to a school that did require summer reading. I have to admit I voted to elect it for extra credit. If you step back and think for a moment, the most joyful part of being a child (or even a teen for that matter) is having summer vacation. Imagine what your life would be like living like an adult going 40 hours a week and never getting a break? Let children be children, when you REQUIRE something, you make it seem un-enjoyable. Although I love reading, I know many children whom I have tutored that hate to read, and most of them site forced reading as their reason for its dislike.
Reading is wonderful, and every person on earth should enjoy it. I just don't think you should force children to do it over the summer. Or else what's the point of having a summer vacation in the first place?
This post has been edited by GryffindorGhost: Apr 22 2006, 03:39 PM
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