Should Watertown schools require summer reading?

This was published by the Watertown TAB July 31, 2019. Read the full article here:

With July 4 in the rear view mirror, and back-to-school around the corner, the time students have to finish their summer assignments is quickly coming to a close.

Summer reading is a norm for many schools in the United States trying to negate the effects of a phenomenon called summer slide.

Summer slide is when students, especially those from low-income families, lose some of the achievement gains they made during the previous school year over the summer.

To avoid this many schools assign summer reading, but the Watertown High School English Language Arts Department found that these requirements were not necessarily helping all of their students.

What happened to summer reading?

Last summer, the ELA Department implemented new summer reading requirements for students. The new requirements are more relaxed and based on the students’ chosen ELA course level.

For college prep classes summer reading is optional, but students can choose to do it for extra credit. The department also scaled back some of the reading expectations for AP and honors students. All senior English courses still require summer reading.

Maureen Regan, the ELA curriculum coordinator for grades six through 12, said the district made the decision after evaluating what had been happening with summer reading at the high school over the years.

“What we were finding was that, regardless of whether [summer reading] was a requirement or an option, there were students who were not doing it,” Regan said.

Before Regan became the department chair, summer reading assignments counted as 10 percent of a student’s first quarter grade. Regan said those students who did not complete the reading found themselves starting the year at a deficit and often became even more embittered about the process of reading.

The department found that tying a grade to summer reading, or punishing those who did not do it had a negative effect on students.

“We found that was punitive and that didn’t really work for our college prep students,” Regan said. “Kids who were inclined to read anyway did so, and the kids who weren’t, it didn’t motivate them to do so.”

This article was originally published by the Watertown TAB July 31, 2019. Read the full article here: https://watertown.wickedlocal.com/news/20190731/should-watertown-schools-require-summer-reading