All of my rants about numbers = funding = proving our worth, aside, is there really a point to teen summer reading?
You be the judge:
Teens continue to acquire literacy skills through middle and high school (especially true for English Language Learners) so they can still lose ground if they don’t read over the summer.
And the lost ground of previous summers has a cumulative effect so kids and tweens who don’t read over the summer can literally become teens who CAN’T read. These trends are especially true for low-income youth and for boys (especially boys of color).
In addition, while reading scores for elementary school students have improved in the last twenty years; they’ve been declining among high school seniors since the early 1990s (“To Read or Not to Read,” National Endowment for the Arts, 2007).
And reading is good for teens (and communities) in other ways. Readers make better citizens! Adults who read often and well have better-paying jobs, enjoy more hobbies and leisure activities, and are more likely to be volunteers and to vote (NEA, 2007).
So, given this information, it seems pretty clear to me that teen summer reading MATTERS, don’t you think?
Cash in the Coffee Can= $40.00
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