It’s the first day of summer reading at my library! Have I told you how much I LOVE summer reading these days? It’s killing me to miss kickoff this week while I’m isolating at home, fighting COVID Round Two. 😦
My library district took a summer reading pause in 2020. GASP! That’s right, we didn’t do a summer reading program one year. And you know what? We survived. The patrons survived. And when we brought back summer reading in 2021, it was more intentional and better than ever!
My favorite thing that changed? We give away the free book first.
No logs. No tracking. No registration required. No hoops to jump through. You’re a kid between birth to age eighteen? You get a free book of your choice.
It’s that simple, and it’s that incredible.
We get more participation now than we ever did before COVID – back when we used to pull out all the gimmicks and cheap prizes. It’s been especially rewarding to see more engagement from ages we didn’t before, like the teens and the under 5 crowd. There is no motivation like intrinsic motivation!
Check out these stats from before/after:
*Please note these numbers are approximations. In 2021, we switched to tracking the number of books given by category (e.g. board book) instead of the reader’s age range. We also separated the adults from summer reading and now host an exclusive adult reading program later in the fall.
Towards a More Equitable Summer Reading Program
In a 2015 resource guide, the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) network says decisions should be analyzed through a racial equity tool, or Impact Assessment. That assessment should ask “who would benefit or be burdened by a given decision?” and also “what are the potential unintended consequences of the decision?”
If the alleged goal is to prevent learning loss and keep kids reading, why do traditional summer reading programs give away books at the END of summer? Awarding the book at the end privileges the kids who are already strong readers in the habit of reading and who have reliable access to books. It doesn’t do much for the kids who likely need those books the most.
This year I served on the Summer Reading Outreach Subcommittee at my library. I could not be more proud of the work we did. We partnered with select schools near the libraries where we have the lowest summer reading numbers – where several factors prevent kids from visiting the library. We connected 1,452 students with free books of their choice BEFORE they went home for the summer. 💪
Who Benefits from Summer Reading Competitions?
Some local libraries partner with schools in a different way for summer reading. Both Douglas County Libraries and Jefferson County Public Library host school summer reading contests. In Douglas County, the schools with the most sign-ups by the end of summer are awarded $500. In Jefferson County, schools with the highest percentage of finishers are awarded $800.
Let’s look at who benefits from that structure.
Devinny Elementary School in Lakewood won the JCPL Summer Reading School Contest last year in 2022. Devinny Elementary School won the contest in 2021. Guess which elementary school won the contest in 2020? That’s right, Devinny.
According to the Devinny Elementary School report card, 83% of students scored at or above the proficient level for reading. The school’s minority student enrollment is 21% and 13% of students are economically disadvantaged. Statewide, Devinny ranks 14 out of 992 elementary schools.
Remember what I said about privileging kids who are already strong readers in the habit of reading and who have reliable access to books?
Let’s look at another school in Jefferson County. Foothills Elementary School (where I did some student teaching field experiences) is just a mile and a half way from Devinny, but 68% of Foothills students students are economically disadvantaged. At Foothills Elementary School, only 37% of students scored at or above the proficient level for reading. The school’s minority student enrollment is 46%.
Next year Foothills will be receiving the students from Green Mountain Elementary, which closed at the end of the 22-23 school year. Like the other schools that closed, Green Mountain Elementary had a “higher percentage than the district average of students from low-income families.” Even though Devinny is closer to Green Mountain, they aren’t slotted to receive any students. Funny how that works…
A Closer Look
When you look at your summer reading program, what are your goals? Do your strategies actually align with those goals? And most importantly, who benefits and who is burdened? Are you, with the best of intentions, actually widening inequities in your community?
The answers to these questions aren’t easy. They require us to ask, like Lindsey recently did, what if the summer reading club didn’t exist? They require a radical re-imagining of what summer reading could be. This is not the kind of deep work that happens when you’re in the grind of summer reading year in, year out. This is the kind of deep work that requires us to take a step back and pause. To stop equating being busy with doing a good job. To stop equating doing good things with being good (see also Fobazi Ettarh’s work on vocational awe).
As one of my mentors likes to say, embrace the power of the pause! As another one of my mentors says, start with your WHY. Melissa Depper over at Mel’s Desk has a great post about writing a storytime mission statement. What happens when you follow this thought process for summer reading? Swap the word “summer reading” for storytime in this paragraph:
Keep your mission statement in front of you the next time you plan a storytime. How is each part of your storytime helping you with these goals? What are you doing in your storytime practice that you can let go of? What could you add to better address your mission?
What do you love about your summer reading program? What do you wish you could do differently? I’d love to connect in the comments below!
Storytime in the Stacks 
So interesting to see the results from two years. When passing out a free book at the beginning of summer (not at schools) do you still have free choice or purchase just multiple copies of a few select titles for each age range? Just trying to envision how it would not be mass chaos on the first day of registration. Thanks!
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Hi Elizabeth,
Great question! We purchase MASSIVE quantities of 5 unique board book titles and 10 titles for every other age range (e.g. 10 picture book titles, 10 early readers, etc.) Let me know if more questions come to mind!
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I also give free books at the beginning, and they get another at the end if they meet the [very achievable] goal. I’d honestly love to do away with tracking and logging all together, but I don’t think I can get my director to give up those stacks. Our state library really pushes tracking by minutes.
If you don’t require any logging, tracking, or registration, then how are you defining and measuring participation? Is it just by how many books you give away? And if there is no tracking of any kind, how do you prevent people from taking more than one book? Or do you just consider it the cost of doing business? Sorry for so many questions, I’m just still working on how to get my program even more in line with my philosophy and what research shows about incentivized reading, as well as easier for staff. Here’s how I did mine this year: http://www.adventuresinstorytime.com/2023/06/summer-reading-going-rogue.html
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Hi Jen! Great questions. We have self-directed activities at our branches that change on a regular basis throughout the summer, and we track participation/engagement with those. If someone grabs more than one book throughout the summer, oh well! We have not really run into that issue and always have plenty of books leftover at the end. It’s kind of like doing away with late fines – why manage to the exception when most people return their materials on time?
The summer reading boat took a LONG TIME to turn and was deeply connected to equity work the library had been doing. Email me and I’ll send you resources! It helps that our State Library does not emphasize minutes. In fact, I think they only keep track of registrants, not even finishers.
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Another though re goals…. It’s really hard when your goals for SRP as a professional children’s librarian and your organization’s goals do not align, which is often the case. As a youth librarian who was also trained as an educator, my goal for SRP is to encourage reading, to share the joy of reading, to entice reluctant readers, to get kids excited about reading and learning. However, library administration’s goal for SRP is numbers, more participants than the year before, more books read than before, more total minutes read than before, and they design highly competitive, highly incentivized programs that may get higher numbers, but not necessarily more reading or more readers (i.e., more cheating) and research suggests is counter-productive to my goal of inspiring lifelong reading.
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Oof, that is so hard when you are working somewhere that doesn’t align with your personal and professional ethics! I feel you, my library was trapped in a similar SRP model for a long time. Your library administration’s goals sound more like specific outcomes than actual goals. Sounds like they need to go back and think deeply about WHY libraries do summer reading!
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I love that you have done away with reading logs/tracking/incentives for reading. This is something that I have been considering for a few years now for the reasons you outlined. I am interested to learn a bit more about your self-guided activities and how those numbers look for you. Do the kids earn anything for those activities? Thank you!
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Apologies for my long delayed response! The self-guided activities change at the library every two weeks throughout the summer and no, the kids don’t earn anything for doing them (although they are encouraged to talk to staff and some staff give the kids stickers). For the “All Together Now” theme, we had self-guided activities like community coloring pages and building together with LEGO bricks. The year before that, I remember we did scavenger hunts, puzzles, etc. I have since moved out of state and don’t have access to stats anymore, but I remember the activities being popular!
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