Sacred Cow: Summer Reading Programs

Will I get my Librarian Club card (and all it's spelndiferous perks) taken away if I admit that I'm not a huge fan of summer reading programs? Not that I don't enjoy seeing waves of kids and families at the library every summer. I know that reading programs are good for boosting circ stats, but I question the wisdom of how we draw the kids in.  Are we really helping to create life-long readers or making kids think that they will get prizes and perks for activities that should be rewarding in themselves. Every week, the kids bring back their reading slips to get coupons from merchants, candy, and all manner of promotional materials for businesses. I get all wiggy every time Ronald McDonald sets foot into the library for a children's program.  Joe Camel, anyone? How does that get kids to read?

A few of us were talking about how it would be interesting to see a study of how effective summer reading programs are in getting kids to become lifelong readers. It'd be really difficult, I think. If anyone can point me to studies or literature about the efficacy of summer reading programs, I'd appreciate a tip. I confess that I do not know a lot about youth services, and maybe there's something really valuable in reading programs that I'm missing. Set me straight, if that's the case.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I feel that the Summer Reading Program is not necessary. Children should be encouraged to read, but not forced. If children do not want to read, then nobody should make them. Private school children are being forced to do a Summer Reading Program during their summer for a grade. This is not fair. Private school children are more educated than public school children, yet public school children do not have to do the Summer Reading Program. No adults today had to do the Summer Reading Program, so why should children? The Summer Reading Program takes the fun out of a child's summer. If teachers can't get children to have a better education, how can a child learn just by reading a book. Half of the books are not even understandable. If children want to read, then they can. However, having a stupid program during the summer is totally ridiculous. Not to mention, the large project that is a requirement after reading the books.

[rochelle]

Thanks for your comments Anne...that's why I post this stuff! It's good to hear from someone outside the library community. I would really love to see a longitudinal study about summer reading programs, but have NO idea how it could be done. And, just so ya know...any concerns and grumbles expressed here are not at all characteristic of the library community in general. I think most are with you on this one.

One of my concerns is that the kids who most need the support over the summer are the least likely to get it. It takes parents or caregivers to get kids back and forth to the library, to make sure that the kids are really reading, to encourage and help. We also have an adult reading program. When we sign young adults, we also ask the parent if they would like to sign up. It's a big bummer when a parent pushes a non-interested kid to the desk, fills the card out for him or her, then declines to sign up for the adult reading program. "Oh, I don't have time. I don't really read." I don't know that a forced reading march in a household where reading is obviously not genuinely valued is going to be particularly enlightening and useful.

As for McDonald's....my concern has nothing to do with obesity (see blogger photos). My concerns largely come from me as a parent, I really hate having my kids advertised to at school and the public library. Maybe it's a necessary evil, but more's the pity.

[Anne]

"Backsliding" over the summer is a very real phenomenon. Ask anybody who teaches in a primary school. Here's a link to further info from Johns Hopkins University.

http://www.rif.org/educators/articles/primeronSummerLearningLoss.mspx

As a school librarian, I hear all the time from well-meaning adults that "reading should be its own reward" and "they'll expect rewards ALL the time," and so on. This strikes me as trite and smug and sanctimonious. When this theory is extended to other areas of learning, you can see how ridiculous it is. Don't praise your students when they do well on a math test, because being able to recite your times table should be its own reward. Just think, kids, someday you'll be able to figure out your tax return! And don't offer a prize to the winner of the science fair, because knowing about photosynthesis should be its own reward. Stop paying the librarians, because working in such a great atmosphere with all those books, surrounded by a grateful public, should be its own reward.

The fact is, that learning to read isn't simple or easy for many students; it's hard work. Reading doesn't become rewarding until a child is reasonably fluent--try reading any book at a rate of four words per minute, and see how "rewarding" it is. In order for students to become fluent, they have to read frequently. And if a sticker or a T-shirt or a free juggling program gets them back into the library one more time, it's worth it!

Business promotional materials? In my community, the summer reading program is sponsored by a local bank. The free t-shirts the children recieve have the NY summer reading logo on the front, and the bank's name on the back. Sure, in an ideal world, the bank would nobly say,"No, no, it's fine, don't worry about me; here's $25,000, don't bother to thank me." But, unsurprisingly, they want some notice for so generous a gift.

I'm afraid I can't agree with any of the other comments posted so far, except the one on not offering fast food coupons to kids. I would not weep should Ronald McDonald fall off the face of the earth. But please; a little sense of proportion, folks. If the summer reading program gives out ONE coupon for an ice cream cone to each child, we are not promoting obesity or creating an addiction. If a child is overweight, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the parents/guardians. I defy anybody to link childhood obesity with the summer reading program!

[Laura]

I'm just gearing up for my first summer reading program, and I, too, find all the coupons and fast food nonsense kind of frightening. I'm excited about the programs I'm going to be running for teens, but then some days I'm suspicious of the usefulness of library programming in general. Yes, I get that it gets people to come to the library, and that this is a good thing, particularly when it comes to persuading library boards and disgruntled voters of the importance of library funding. But I went to the library as a kid mostly to be left alone. I read dozens of books and listened to dozens of records that I never checked out: all those hours that I spent at the library have no statistical existence, but they were enormously important and helpful to me. It's hard to measure the unmeasurable.

[Miriam B.]

The thing that baffles me about Summer Reading is the idea that kids have to be coaxed read over the summer or they will forget how. We have a Reading Buddies program connected to summer reading which trains older children to work with younger ones to practice reading.

I know nothing about early childhood education or the teaching of reading, but... umm... if a child has learned to read and likes it, it's hard to imagine reading as a skill that can expire. The littlies all seem to love books, they don't need to be coaxed. Is this indirectly intended to get PARENTS to think of checking out books and bringing the kids to the library, so that their brains are fed and exercised while school is out?

Reader and the servant of readers,

Miriam B.
Santa Fe Public Library