The Summer Reading Network: To keep kids reading during the summer, librarians connect online to share resources
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“At this level, most have plenty of free-choice time to do reading,” says Melissa Techman, a teacher librarian at Broadus Wood Elementary School in Earlysville, VA. “But later, by the time they’ve crammed in all that AP work, they don’t even want to read.” School and public librarians put tremendous energy into creating fun activities for children around summer reading, which educators believe is critical for students to maintain literacy skills for the coming school year. “It’s not so much that you have to read six books to keep up with skills,” says Linda Braun, president of the Young Adult Library Services Association. “It’s more that reading regularly helps you develop and maintain what you’ve learned.” Hopeful her students can maintain reading and math levels come fall, Techman turned to colleagues across the country to assemble online resources, which give librarians and teachers an opportunity to share their summer literacy projects. Take John Schumacher’s Animoto site. Students at the librarian’s school, Brook Forest Elementary School in Oak Brook, IL, vote on literary characters to accompany him on his summer road trip. Students can then follow Schumacher’s journey online. Last summer, author-illustrator Mo Willems’s characters, Knuffle Bunny and Pigeon, became Schumacher’s travel buddies, while this year, children chose author Melanie Watt’s Scaredy Squirrel to join the librarian on a trip East. Students and parents can also surf Techman’s own Weblist where she offers math sites for K–2 students. At the end of the school year, Techman emailed parents this information, along with tips from Schumacher and other librarians (weblist.me/reading-activities). She hopes more librarians follow this trend, building off each other’s ideas, rather than reinventing the wheel each summer. “The world of school librarians is notorious for making their own reading lists each year,” says Techman. “It’s a labor of love and a waste of time.” Yet school librarians are hardly the only ones heading online to inspire reading over the summer. Margaret Hazel, virtual branch and innovative tech manager at the Eugene (OR) Public Library, encourages patrons to post reviews of their favorite titles on the library’s “Find a Good Book” Web page (bit.ly/cu9s2M). “I’m not sure where the idea came from, but our director suggested that we use Chilifresh [an online review engine] instead of asking people to fill out paper reviews for adult summer reading,” says Hazel by email. Reviews on everything from Joe Hill’s (William Morrow, 2010) to (Mother Tongue Ink, 2009), a children’s book, had been posted by early June. To Techman, the wide array of online choices (bit.ly/dtXmen) can only help engage students with reading—and make it easier for parents who often struggle to get their kids to pick up a book during those endless summer days. “Instead of that paper list on the refrigerator,” says Techman. “I’m a big believer in all avenues. The list on the fridge is nice, but if I can send out resources online and in a way that grabs their attention, that’s nice, too.”—Lauren Barack
Despite the lure of sprinklers, playgrounds, and ice cream trucks, what do most students do during summer? Surf the Web. No wonder more librarians are turning to the Internet to encourage summer reading, especially among younger students.
