By Carol Koechlin & Anita Brooks Kirkland
Students want books to read over the summer according to Scholastic’s State of Kids and Reading in Canada report. How do we make sure our students have access to lots of good books they want to read?
76% of children aged 6 to 17 totally agreed with the statement,
“I really enjoy reading books over the summer.”
Scholastic State of Kids and Reading in Canada
What are the benefits of implementing summer lending in Canada’s school libraries:
- Engaging students in reading to address the summer learning slump
- Building a community of readers within and across schools
- Putting books into the hands of students during the summer and all year
- Getting more out of school library collections
- Building responsibility and trust
- Making reading a yearlong habit
Realizing these benefits requires support from school administrators and teachers. Summer lending is a positive influence on placing the library learning commons at the heart of literacy and school-wide improvement.
What is the role of school library professionals in supporting kids and reading over the summer?
- Throw a lifeline to your students and help them have access to lots of great books to read.
- Encourage students to check out books from the school library collection over the summer.
- Utilize the school library virtual site to connect students to lots of good ebooks, authors, reviews etc.
- Invite the local public library to inform students about access to reading and other programs all summer long.
- Create a newsletter for parents informing them of the need to keep their children reading, thinking and making to avoid the “summer slide”.
- Check out these articles previously published in CSL Journal for lots of ideas to make SOS work for your school.
- Its Time to Set your Books Free for the Summer
- Keep students reading, thinking and making to address the summer achievement gap.
- Read some testimonials from CSL Journal publications:
- Consider keeping track of the difference your summer reading program makes on student reading engagement and learning readiness in the fall. Analyze the results and prepare a report for your school and/or a paper sharing your findings at TMC8. Consult the CSL Research Toolkit for support.
- Share your Support Student Reading Over the Summer initiatives, strategies and results on social media so we can all benefit from each other’s work and ideas.
- Keep it simple and celebrate the joys of reading with your students!
Carol Koechlin and Anita Brooks Kirkland are the co-editors of CSL Journal and authors of the report, The Eric Walters School Library Summer Lending Challenge: Findings from the Research.