Should Watertown schools require summer reading?

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.”

A new set of requirements for Watertown students

Over the last decade, the department has implemented various changes to summer reading assignments. Regan said they have tried giving students more choice about what they could read over the summer and even scaled back the grade percentage reading assignments counted for in the first quarter.

Even with these changes the Department found there were still populations of students who were choosing not to do the summer reading.

The department issued surveys to students in an effort to understand why some students were choosing not to complete their summer assignments. Regan said the responses were eye opening and that she thought the results surprised many teachers.

“There were students who were opposed to the idea of summer reading and, no matter what we did, no matter what the consequence was, they were going to choose not to do it,” Regan said.

In the surveys, students wrote about their other responsibilities during the summer months, and other issues that precluded them from being able to select or read a book.

Regan said the department also heard from parents who felt their children were overburdened with the sheer volume of summer work from all the various honors and AP courses.

Another factor the department considered is how technology has impacted students' ability to read long-form texts. Regan said that, with the rise in technology, books can no longer compete in the same way for their students' attention.

All of these factors led the department to implement the new set of summer reading standards last summer. They decided to reward the students who were invested in reading, but not punish those who were not.

“We don’t care what you read, we care that you read.”

The more relaxed requirements have not significantly impacted the number of students choosing to read over the summer. Regan said a few more students did choose to read, but this was in part because some classes now offered extra credit.

Conversations in the department about best practices for summer assignments are ongoing, and they have not settled on a final solution.

“We have tried a number of things over the last decade, and we are still examining where does it work, and how can we get our kids engaged,” Regan said.

In the meantime, the department has implemented other methods during the school year to motivate students to read.

Last year, the department worked in tandem with the High School’s librarian Erin Piazza to create “speed dating for books.” Piazza set up different book stations about the High School Library, with tea and hot cocoa, reminiscent of a cafe, so students could pick up a book, read a few pages, and have time to engage with some of the texts.

“Our hope is that we model that reading is really fun,” Regan said. “In some ways, what we were trying to say to kids is we don’t care what you read, we care that you read. We are hopeful that eventually that message will get through.”