Preparing the Ground for Summer Reading

• “Mrs. Essenburg, I want to read that book I saw you reading a while ago—the first word of the title is ‘Maybe.’” 
• “I liked The War That Saved My Life. Do you have any other historical fiction?”
• “Are there more books by Alan Gratz?”
• “If I want to read this series with five books in it, is that enough?”

All I’d planned to do was introduce the idea of a want-to-read list, pass one out, and have students paste it into the back of their journals. Then over the next 3 weeks they could begin collecting titles they might want to read over the 6-week summer vacation. But as students turned to each other for recommendations, descended on the classroom library to check titles, and peppered me with questions, I decided to scrap the vocabulary lesson and just ride the wave of reading interest. I’ve found that summer reading goes so much better when the ground has been well prepared, and that was happening.

What does preparing the ground for summer reading look like?

• Students making goals. In this case, a want-to-read list with at least 5 books on it by the time term ends.
• Teacher book talks. I’m giving a book talk a day, sharing a title from our school’s new e-library that students might be interested in. 
• Student book talks. Next week every student will give a book talk to the class, sharing a title they’ve enjoyed this term that their classmates might want to add to their want-to-read list.
• A Google Doc to curate my favorite titles from our e-library (see photo above). I might love exploring, but many students might initially be overwhelmed. So my document has a screenshot of the book cover, the title linked to the library, and a brief by me.

I spent so many years just handing out a summer reading assignment on the last day of school. It’s so much more fun to begin generating interest and expectation, setting students up for success ahead of time. 

What do you do to prepare the ground for summer reading?