Alas, it sounds like another example where test results are dictating curricula. I don't really believe that the love of reading is affected positively or negatively by tests or requirements, but if there are good pedagogical reasons for having summer reading (and I think there are), then test results shouldn't matter.

Russ

It seems a bit bizarre.

...many middle and high school students failed tests in September on books they had been required to read during the summer - and yet ...fewer than 1 percent of those students failed the book tests last fall.

If less than one per cent failed, I'd have called that a roaring success!!

Hang on - I get it. That's the result for the advanced placement course.

My mistake.

Is this summer reading requirement a widespread thing? I've never had to do that. Public libraries organise their own reading programs, where everytime you read a book you get to participate in a draw or something like that.

I agree that reading for assessment stifles reading pleasure. Kids should learn that books are a source of enjoyment, not a tedium to get through for marks. Books should be read for story, not details.

PAM, can you explain the usual system to someone from the UK please?
I don't think English children are expected to do any 'set' reading during the school holidays, unless they are possibly in the VI Forms (last 2 years of school) and working for exams. Also the school summer holiday is now reduced to about 5/6 weeks, much shorter than yours.

I am also bothered by the writing of the newspaper article itself: one sentence = 1 paragraph. I've seen it before and I hope it doesn't catch on in any big way! It's sloppy in the extreme, born of idleness and sets an appalling example. As an ex-English teacher, I am infuriated by this kind of thing.

Dido

PAM,
My children are in elementary school so I don't know if our school district has any 'required' summer reading for the high-schoolers, But there definately isn't a requirement for the younger kids. I'm happy to say though, that our library sponsors a wonderful summer book reading contest that culminates each August with an outdoor party and children's musician/entertainer. In addition, every participate receives a paper certificate. Children sign up at the end of the school year in June. As an incentive, for each book they have read they get to put their name in a raffle to win certain prizes. The children can select their own books; there isn't a required reading list.

There are required reading lists (and the subsequent report and/or diorama) during the school year, so I don't have a problem with kids NOT being required to read over the summer. Because while I love reading and I think it's something to be encouraged and cultivated in youngsters, I also feel summer is more about 'getting outside' and running around like a fool until you collapse in bed around 8pm! But then, of course, that's when I come in and read to my kids...

As with most things in life, I'm sure I'll have a different view/opinion when I living through it. (ie. when the kids are in High School....I'm really hoping my kids remain readers so it won't be an issue....)

Marge

Let's see if I can make a few things clearer in regard to my understanding of the summer reading.

Children are given a list of books to choose from for their summer reading. In my district, every student is given a list of recommended reading, K-12, at the end of every school year. There are many books on the list, but no "Harry Potter" books. Classics are the most popular.

The kids then have to select one or two or three books to read from the list. AP kids (advanced placement) have a heavier coarse load. The number of books they must read depends upon the district. The kids then return to school and have a very basic test to see if they read the book and can explain one or two things they've learned from it. This is not rocket science. This is basic essay stuff. The idea is not to "make the kids read" but rather to keep education alive during the summertime.

My kids are 8 and 4. My third grade daughter read the newspaper article and was appalled. She said, "First of all Mama, it's a shame anyone isn't willing to read on their own. And second, how hard is it to read one or two books over the whole summer? Are those grown-ups (the school board) dummies? I guess they don't like books either."

My school district is very pro-reading. They have DEAR time every day, (Drop Everything And Read), they hand out reading journals for the kids to keep track, they read to the kids and hand out reading lists. My local library also has kids, teen and adult reading programs that are awesome, plus a lunch bunch for kids 7 - 10 who bring a book and a bag lunch and discuss what they've read while having lunch with the kids' librarians.

Dido, you've brought up an excellent point in regard to the writing of the article. Just another example of the dumbing down of society here in the USA. Make it easy, make it simple so no one has to actually engage their brain. It's such a shame.

Students have never had summer reading requirements here in SA. However, our summer holidays are now only 6 weeks (7 when I was at school) and include the Christmas/New Year period, so the kids are back at school in no time.

I can't really see the harm in asking kids to read if they are away from school for a long time, but if the aim is to keep the reading ticking over, why not let them choose the books?

Here's a link to the article from the on-line newspaper, the Carlisle Sentinal. Used to be the Evening Sentinal.. I grew up in Carlisle and attended its public schools from K--12.

In Carlisle, and I think all over PA, school boards are elected, not appointed. While I am sure each method has its advantages and disadvantages, I found it telling that a board member is quoted as saying the parents did not want a summer reading requirement. Votes, votes...

Here is a link that might be useful: Evening Sentinal

It's impossible to MAKE students read during the summer IF their parents are not going to see that they read the book. Most students are failing the test because they simply do not do the summer reading. Yes, it kills the pleasure of a book to HAVE to read one, or it does for me. No, it doesn't hurt one to read a book though. Why is it that teachers and schools have to be the "meanies" and MAKE students read? What about the responsibility of the parents? More and more, we're expected to do that job, and frankly, it gets tiresome.

We have the AP and PreAP do summer reading at our school, but not the "regular" English classes. I'm sorry to see it happening, but one cannot force students, or parents apparently, to do something they do not like to do. We've essentially made reading a hated chore it seems to me in most school districts.

Reading for pleasure is something that begins at home, not at school. It's very difficult to teach that in high school since patterns and habits are already pretty well set. When I was teaching English, we did have reading Fridays. It worked only IF I read my book while the students were reading. Of course, that was easy for me to do. I fostered a bit of love for reading, but not by much. I never tested over that reading, just wanted my students to read for pleasure.

I had a parent once who said "I haven't read a book since high shool, BUT I want YOU to make my child read." Hah, not with that attitude at home, I couldn't. Too late.

As to a one sentence paragraph, what's wrong with it? Nothing. Real writing has paragraphs of varying lengths. Some are one sentence, some might be an entire page long. That's not an example of dumbing down. I fight the "a paragraph has to be three to five sentence" syndrome on a daily basis. A paragraph has to be long enough to do the job.

I am a high school English teacher in her 26th year. My district has "required summer reading" for honors students entering grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. Many very smart kids do not take honors level classes (instead they enroll in "regular English") because they don't want to do the summer reading. It's unfathomable to me that the parents don't step in here and help them with their priorities.

On the other hand, as a teacher of a few honors classes, I have students who enroll in the course who don't read the books, either. They try to BS through it, or get by with the knowledge they gained from Cliffs Notes, the internet or friends who share what they learned when they read for real.

In 26 years, I'm finding that more and more so-called honors students are interested in reading less and less.

I have independent silent reading every Friday, and have for 15 years or so. It's been wonderful. I don't turn 100% of my students into readers, but I do get a few to read at least a few more books than they otherwise would have. And it's true, I'm more successful when I plop down in one of the student desks with my book and read all period with them. I love it, and I think they need to see an adult getting "lost" in a book. They've seen me wipe tears, giggle, laugh out loud, and be so absorbed that I "miss" an occasional misbehavior.

You wouldn't believe the # of students each year - honors and regular - who proudly make the claim "I haven't read a book since 4th grade." I just want to weep. Making up for that lost time will be near-impossible. Those years (grades 5-8) are so necessary in the development of one's reading skills. If I get a student in regular grade 11 who truly hasn't read a book since 4th grade, how in the world can I expect him to understand Julius Ceasar, a requirement in grade 11? The progression of learning has had too great an interruption for him to make such a leap.

(good grief, I should've known not to get started on this...what a rant...)

As reading goes, so goes writing. I have seen it over and over-good, enthusiastic readers who pick up books that challenge them are often the ones who then can write well. My theory: they absorb, by osmosis if you will, varying sentence and paragraph structures, expanded word choices, correct grammar and punctuation (they develop an inner eye that tells them a mistake "just isn't right" without neccessarily being able to tell you WHY it's wrong-it just IS), rhythms, descriptions....as I teach writing, I'd much rather come across a student that is copying a writer's style than one who is still stuck in simple sentences with basic "article, adjective, noun, verb, adverb" structure over and over. The one who is copying a style will go on to try on other styles, other structures, as they read more-the simple sentece non-reader may add another descriptor when asked by the teacher, but then it will be the "big, fat dog ran fast and barked" instead of just "The big fat dog ran fast." They can't write what they haven't seen. As teachers, we can use examples, we can read aloud, we can even require them to read...but still, the students who read for themselves will always come out on top. They have an internal knowledge of why it is important that I believe has to be set there very young, or, as others have said, there's a huge amount of ground to try to make up.
As a parent, I have one who reads as she breathes-she was a National Merit Finalist and is now Phi Beta Kappa, a double honors major at a well-respected uni. As a first-semester freshman she was approached by English professors asking if she would tutor other students in writing. Her favorite thing to do as a very young child was be read to, look at picture books and listen to books on tape as she followed along. My son had hearing issues and speech issues as a child. For a long while I could not read to him-he didn't hear what I said-it was garbled as it passed through his ears. No speech at all until well after the age of 2. His passive vocabulary was small-when Mommy said "cookie" and you heard "kmnkggg" it's hard to put it together. We could cuddle and look at the pictures, and we did, for brief intervals-again, I could say "look at the dog" but that's not what he heard-but his fascination was sorting and manipulating objects-no speech required because it wasn't there. The problems were sorted out, by age 6 he was almost caught up in language, but went to speech therapy all through his elementary years, and even was part of a high school pilot program for bright kids with reading issues. He tests high average on standard intelligence tests, so should be able to read literature on his grade level. He has been a reluctant reader all his life, and now, in 11th grade, struggles through his English lit classes. Math, Chem, History, Accounting- he's fine, because content reading is simpler and more to the point-but reading early American lit, sorting through the wordiness and the...

Years ago I went to a private high school. Each summer there was a long list of required reading. I absolutely hated it and felt it ruined the carefree aspect of my summers. I was already an inveterate reader for the sheer love of it. FWIW,There was no television in my home. Now, I'm wondering if being forced to read Lamb's "Tales of Shakespeare" is what put me off the actual bard when I came to his works later on....

woodnymph, there's always that concern - that requiring reading makes it an unpalatable task. I fear that it does for many. But when families are not reading together, and kids come to school with the notion that reading is akin to torture, then schools feel forced to make reading a requirement, beyond the school year in the summer break.

When report after report blames school for sending graduates to college who need remediation in reading, what alternative is there?

I have been tutoring foreign students in English for years and there is a lot here I can agree with. A very interesting thread.

Woodnymph: I can understand how a "long list of required reading" would spoil the fun. Even though I love to read, somehow I dislike the feeling that I "have" to read a book a friend has lent me, saying, "You'll love this one!" and the book often gets shoved aside in favor of books I have chosen for myself, until I begin to feel guilty for not returning it yet. Perhaps one solution would be to give the non-AP students wider latitude in choosing books and to only require them to read one book during the vacation. Let it be one they can really enjoy--even if that means Harry Potter!

Having a time when everyone, including the teacher, sits and reads in the classroom sounds like a great idea to me. I loved reading Captain Backfire's description of her experience.

As for paragraphs made up of only one sentence, yes, sometimes a one-sentence paragraph is justifiable--but a whole newspaper article written that way? That certainly smacks of "dumbing down." Maybe students would be willing to read more if all books contained only one-sentence paragraphs. (Just a facetious suggestion!) On the other hand, having to tutor children in writing as well as reading, I sympathize with Marg411's complaint. It often happens that one of my pupils has an assignment to write "three paragraphs of five sentences each" on some subject that does not lend itself to such a cut-and-dried approach. The teacher is trying to force the students to practice organizing sentences in a paragraph, but the result is frustration, irritation and, often, unnatural writing. I would fight this practice if I were in the school system, but, as it is, all I can do is rail against it in places where railing does no good.

Speaking of "unnatural," right now, a certain fourth-grade class is being assigned to summarize an article from the local newspaper once a week. The children have to use that day's paper, and they are not allowed to choose any articles that are about animals--the one thing most of them would probably be interested in. Some weeks, practically all the articles are about such subjects as rapes, murders, gory accidents, corruption in government, legal battles, and war, and I have a hard time finding one suitable for a child. This is frustrating, but I can also see some humor in it.

My niece (now 13) started out being excited about reading. She'd read Junie B Jones aloud to us in the car if we took her somewhere. I had high hopes that she would turn into a book lover like myself, but it didn't happen. When she was in third grade, a "new" concept was being used in her school system. The children had to read a book (I think they could choose from a short list) and then had to take tests to determine if they had read and understood it. They were given a certain period of time to finish the book and then were tested. The slower readers never had enough time to finish, so always did poorly on the tests. From being interested in reading, she turned (in the course of 1 semester) to hating books. To this day, she hates books and reading.

Ah yes-the glory of the Accelerated Reading Software. Once again, the good readers eat it up-it affirms their "good reader-ness", while the struggling readers just have one more chance to find out that yes, they are struggling readers. I have yet to see it encourage a reluctant reader to pick up a book with pleasure. And as a sub I see a lot of different students in the course of a year.

Could it be that a love of reading is genetic? That there is a specific set of somethings that create a desire to read, have books, enjoy the smell/look/feel of a book?

I know there are many opinions that state that a child who comes from a home of readers will appreciate books.

I never recall my parents reading for pleasure ( they were too busy trying to make a living) yet I am a book lover and reader ( have been since I first saw a library).

I do believe that love of reading is at least partly genetic. My own parents put a big emphasis on reading. My Mom loved/loves to read, and read to us all the time when we were young. I also love to read, but my brother does not and never has. My Mom often says how even as a toddler/pre-schooler he wouldn't sit and listen while she read picture books. He had no interest and never has. So, I do think it's partially genetic. But I also think that if you read a lot to your kids and encourage reading, it increases the chance that they will be readers.

Kelly