It is called “summer slide,” “summer reading gap,” “summer learning loss,” and “summer setback.” Unfortunately, each year, summer learning loss accentuates the reading gap that exists between students from low–socioeconomic and high–socioeconomic families. One way to combat the summer slide is to get books into kids’ hands and encourage them to actually read them. Linda B. Gambrell, Professor of Education at Clemson University, and former president of the International Reading Association has some very practical tips for connecting kids and books. These suggestions were first published in her 2008 article “Closing the Summer Reading Gap: You Can Make a Difference!”
Ways you can make a difference
by Linda B. Gambrell
There are a number of things that individual classroom teachers can do to encourage summer reading. In a study conducted with elementary–age students, Jimmy Kim found that reading four to five books during the summer was potentially enough to prevent a decline in reading achievement from spring to fall.
The key to overcoming summer reading loss is finding novel ways to get books into students’ hands during the summer break. Here are four suggestions for classroom teachers:
- During “teacher read–aloud time,” share information about a variety of books. Students are more likely to read books they know something about. During the 15 to 20 minutes that you would read aloud from a single book, give a brief overview of multiple books instead, making sure you share a balance of narrative and informational texts reflecting a range of reading levels. Encourage students to make a list of the books they want to read over the summer. If a teacher shares 12 to 15 books a week during the final four weeks of school, students will be introduced to 50 or 60 books for potential summer reading.
- Share “3–a–day.” If you can’t devote 15 to 20 minutes at a time to book sharing, try taking 5 minutes each day during the last month of school to share “3–a–day,” quickly sharing a narrative text, an informational text, and something else, such as a book of poetry. Using this approach, you could share up to 60 books with your students.
- Distribute older books to students to take home for summer reading. When I was a classroom teacher, I carefully guarded my own library, making sure I could account for every book. As a consequence, the number of books in my classroom library grew substantially each year. I’ve since come to realize that students, like adults, gravitate toward newer titles. While there are some classics we will want to retain in our classroom libraries, perhaps it is time to weed out some of the older or never–touched books and give them to students for summer reading. If the books in your classroom library have been purchased with school funds, first obtain permission from your principal.Giving students books to take home on the last day of class is a powerful way to increase the likelihood of summer reading. You might want to duplicate a book plate that students can paste inside the front cover of the books they select. This book plate might say something like “Happy summer reading from your 5th–grade teacher, Mrs. Brown.” Books given to students by the teacher often become favorites and are highly likely to be read over the summer.
- Explore other ways you and your school can promote access to books, particularly for students from low–socioeconomic families. Suggestions include keeping the school library open during the summer months, taking a class trip to the local library during the last month of school to ensure that every student has a library card, and working with local businesses to sponsor the purchase of books for each student to take home on the last day of class.