Our participation needs improvement as well. 

fyi
We don't require, but encourage/ask students to read at least two books over the summer.

We provide a reading log for them to track their reading and ask that they return the log at the start of the school year for a chance to win a raffle prize. (eg. Barnes and Noble gift card)  We used a Teen Book Bingo sheet the first year I came. I remember collecting a lot of bingo sheets that September! The resource and idea came from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. A source that may be helpful is www.spl.org/summeroflearning

We decide on a theme, create flyers including links to reading sources (eg. Governor's Reading Challenge) and "benefits for summer reading", etc. The flyer is accessible on the district website. 

Last year, we started a June Summer Reading Kick Off Ice Cream Social event. We invited our community library to promote their reading program as well as offer library card sign up. The ice cream came from our local ice cream shop. Students received cinch sac bags (with school name/logo) to fill up at the event with free bookmarks, ice cream coupons, summer reading flyer/reading log, and their first summer reading book. We are a 6-8 school, so we invited students coming up from the fifth grade. The upcoming fifth grade students were the majority of our event participants. 

Hope that helps!🙂



On Fri, Feb 23, 2024 at 1:02 PM Loretta Sullivan via CASL-L <casl-l@mylist.net> wrote:
Hello everyone,

I wanted to ask what other districts do for summer reading for students in grades 5-8 (middle levels)?  Do you ask for a reading log?  What incentives do you offer?  Is there required reading or is it voluntary?  If you can share what you have, that would be great.

Our public library also has incentives for summer reading and we advertise these to our students before they leave us in June.

Any thoughts or ideas that have worked is appreciated.  We are trying to get more kiddos reading over the summer as our participation last year needs much improvement.  We would like to do something that is manageable for teachers to assess in the fall when students return (we are a school of approx. 850 students).

We offer a "reading celebration" in the fall for those students that participated in reading over the summer.

Respectfully,

Loretta Sullivan
Library Media Specialist       
Bennet Academy
Manchester, CT





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