Boost Academic Success: The Critical Role of Summer Reading for Teens
Over these next summer months, it's crucial to help our clients maintain and even enhance their academic skills. One of the best ways to prevent summer learning loss is through reading.
Summer reading is a powerful tool to keep young minds engaged, combat brain drain, and prepare students for the challenges of the upcoming school year.
By reading books that interest them, students not only preserve their literacy skills but also develop critical thinking, expand their vocabulary, improve their writing, and (ideally!) acquire a love of reading.
Additionally, engaging in summer reading helps students explore and focus on specific interests, an attribute that could make them more attractive candidates for college applications.
Encourage your clients to take advantage of their summer break to set a strong foundation for their academic success and personal growth by reading.
The Importance of Summer Reading
Summer reading is lauded as one of the best methods for keeping students’ brains active and engaged while preventing the “summer slide” of learning loss.
Here are some ways in which reading can help your students stay on target and even make academic gains over summer break:
1. Prevents summer learning loss.
Engaging in reading during the summer helps prevent the loss of reading skills when students are out of school. This "summer slide" can result in students being months behind when the new school year begins. By continuing to read, students maintain their literacy skills and stay prepared for the upcoming academic challenges.
And there’s plenty of data to back up this claim. One study conducted by faculty from the University of Tennessee found that: “[students] who do not read in the summer lose two to three months of reading development while kids who do read tend to gain a month of reading proficiency.”
That’s a huge potential loss or a really strong gain for the next school year!
2. Enhances reading comprehension.
Reading a variety of texts helps develop better comprehension skills. Strategies like summarizing, predicting, and asking questions during reading can significantly enhance understanding and retention of information. These skills are fundamental for academic success as they enable students to more easily grasp and engage with complex texts.
3. Expands vocabulary.
Exposure to new words through reading is one of the most effective ways to build a strong vocabulary, as encountering words in different contexts helps students understand their meanings and usage, enhancing both their speaking and writing abilities. This is crucial not only for language arts but also for understanding terminology in other subjects like math and science.
Building a solid vocabulary is key to reading comprehension, and students who continuously learn and add new vocabulary to their repertoire will undoubtedly have an advantage in comprehension across all subject areas.
4. Enhances writing skills.
Reading well-written works enhances writing skills by exposing students to varied writing styles and an expansive vocabulary. Through this exposure, students learn different sentence structures, word usage, and stylistic devices that they can incorporate into their own writing.
For instance, reading diverse genres helps students understand how to construct compelling narratives, persuasive arguments, and clear expository texts.
Additionally, encountering new words in context improves their vocabulary, making their writing more precise and impactful. This continuous learning process not only improves their writing fluency but also enables them to develop their unique voice, which is invaluable for academic and personal writing success.
5. Improves academic performance across subjects.
Regular reading can improve performance in various subjects. Students who read for pleasure tend to perform better in subjects like English, math, science, and history. This is because reading improves critical thinking and comprehension, which are essential across every curriculum.
Additionally, students who engage in a diverse variety of reading materials and genres tend to perform better academically and on exams.
This harkens back to how reading strengthens critical thinking and reading comprehension by enhancing fundamental skills such as:
Decoding: This is a crucial part of learning to read. Students need this skill to pronounce words they’ve heard orally but haven’t seen in print. This ability forms the basis for all other, more complex reading skills.
Decoding is also imperative for helping to understand more complex and technical words and texts that students may encounter in, say, the science section on the ACT®. If students can decode by using clues from the text, they’ll be able to glean information needed to understand the text and answer the subsequent questions.
Fluency: For smooth reading, students need to recognize words instantly, including those they can’t pronounce phonetically. Fluency accelerates their reading speed as well as comprehension. The key to improving fluency is simple: the more you practice reading, the more fluid and natural your reading becomes!
Sentence Construction and Cohesion: Understanding sentence construction and cohesion is essential for both reading comprehension and writing proficiency.
Sentence construction involves forming clear, grammatically correct sentences, which helps in accurately conveying meaning.
Cohesion refers to the logical flow between sentences and paragraphs, achieved through linking words and transitions. This ensures ideas are connected smoothly, aiding reader comprehension.
Mastery of these skills allows students to write coherent essays and improves overall academic performance by enabling clear and effective communication.
Reasoning and Background Knowledge: This involves linking the information in the text to one’s existing knowledge. For example, a text on the history of tennis could be connected to a documentary a student watched on Venus and Serena Williams.
Think: text-to-text, text-to-world, text-to-self connections.
Working Memory and Attention: Working memory and attention are crucial mental abilities for reading comprehension.
Focus helps students retain information while reading, and working memory allows them to recall and integrate this information, aiding in the interpretation of the text.
These skills ensure that readers can follow complex ideas and maintain a coherent understanding of the material.
Use of Context Clues: Using context clues enables readers to deduce the meaning of unknown words or phrases based on the surrounding text and images.
This skill helps readers understand unfamiliar vocabulary by relying on context, enhancing comprehension, and making reading more fluid and less interrupted.
6. Broadens Knowledge Across Subjects
Reading various texts is essential for broadening knowledge across subjects like English, math, science, and history.
In English, reading diverse genres enhances language skills and comprehension. In math, reading about real-world applications can deepen understanding of abstract concepts. Science texts expose students to new discoveries and methodologies, fostering critical thinking. Historical texts provide context and insights into past events, promoting a deeper grasp of current affairs.
Reading widely cultivates a well-rounded, informed perspective, enhancing academic performance and intellectual growth.
7. Exercises Your Brain
Think of reading like working out, it's exercising muscles. Reading keeps the brain active and engaged. Just as physical exercise strengthens and tones the body, reading stimulates the mind, enhancing cognitive functions such as memory, concentration, and critical thinking. By keeping the brain active through reading, students can return to school refreshed and ready to tackle new challenges with a sharp, well-exercised mind.
Additional (Non-Academic) Benefits of Summer Reading
Summer reading doesn’t just boost academics, it improves the mental and emotional well-being of developing minds.
8. Cognitive and Emotional Development
Reading can stimulate the imagination, foster empathy, and enhance emotional intelligence. Engaging with diverse characters and situations, learning about historical figures and events, and connecting with different lifestyles and traditions in books helps students develop a deeper understanding of different perspectives and cultures.
9. Lifelong Love for Learning
Encouraging reading as a leisure activity helps cultivate a lifelong passion for learning. This intrinsic motivation can lead to continued academic and personal growth throughout life.
By promoting summer reading, we can help our clients not only retain their academic skills but also develop a deeper appreciation for literature, which will undoubtedly set them up for success in the new school year and beyond.
Encouraging Summer Reading
Of course, not all teens are keen to use their summer downtime to read, and not all strong students are avid readers. That’s why it’s important to encourage reading beyond simply listing the academic and personal benefits (those lists are for you and their parents!).
According to data reported by Scholastic, 32% of kids between 15 and 17 said they don’t read at all over the summer break. Furthermore, individuals in that same age group typically read only about 2 books throughout the summer.
Encouraging our students to read over the summer break is undeniably a challenge. But it’s a challenge that educators need to take on to help our students thrive.
The best way to encourage students to read is to make reading an engaging and enjoyable pastime. Maybe they have a family vacation coming up, spend the weekends (even the rainy ones!) at a summer home, are looking for a more relaxing way to unwind before bed, or are willing to squeeze reading into a daily activity like working out or relaxing in the pool—suggest having a book (or a few!) to read or listen to.
Recommend or create a reading list. If you’ve got time, curate a personalized list of books that include a few of your own favorites as well as topics that you think will spark their interest. Better yet, ask them! Focus on their hobbies and interests and a simple internet or Goodreads search will help!
Suggest audiobooks. I am an ardent reader and even I sometimes prefer to or only have time for audiobooks.
For students who struggle with reading or simply don’t have enough downtime, suggest listening to audiobooks as an alternative. Audiobooks are easier to fit into your daily routine, still provide literacy benefits, and can make reading more enjoyable.
There are some really awesome ones easily available through public libraries or subscriptions like Audible (check out Audible’s “The best listens of 2024 (so far) list here).
Stumped for recommendations? There are plenty out there, my friend.
Leveraging Summer Reading for Test and College Prep
Summer reading does wonders for maintaining academic continuity and preventing summer brain drain, but it can also help college-bound students with ACT®, SAT®, and college prep. Summer reading can help:
Strengthen Test-Prep. The ACT® and SAT® reading and writing sections require test takers to have strong ELA skills for multi-genre reading passages as well as the diverse question types such as:
Reading can help give their test prep a major boost in reading comprehension and tackling even the most complex question types on the ACT® and SAT®.
Develop Interests and Specialties: Summer reading helps students explore and develop specific interests, which is crucial for college applications.
By delving into topics of interest, students can gain deep knowledge and build a specialty that makes them stand out in the admissions process. For example, a student interested in economics might become interested in reading about financial markets and then want to apply this knowledge by serving as a club treasurer or organizing fundraisers.
This focused reading not only enriches their understanding but also provides material for compelling college essays and extracurricular involvement.
Create a Strong College Application: Colleges often ask about outside reading to understand students' interests and intellectual curiosity.
By discussing books they've read outside of class, students can enhance their college essays and applications, demonstrating their passion for specific subjects and their commitment to continuous learning. For example, reading in areas such as economics, science, or literature can provide rich material for essays, showcasing their knowledge and enthusiasm.
This not only helps to create compelling personal statements but also highlights the student's initiative and depth of understanding, making their application stand out to admissions officers.
Summer reading is an essential practice for maintaining and enhancing students' academic skills during the break. It helps prevent the "summer slide," improves comprehension and vocabulary, and enhances writing skills.
Moreover, reading a variety of texts can boost performance across subjects and broaden students' knowledge. Beyond academics, it stimulates cognitive and emotional development and fosters a lifelong love for learning.
Encouraging students to read over the summer not only prepares them for the upcoming school year but also helps them explore interests and develop specialties that make them stand out in college applications. Let's ensure our clients make the most of the summer months to stay engaged and set a strong foundation for their future success.
Related Texts:
Step into the Future of Test Prep with Clear Choice Prep!
The SAT® has switched to all-digital testing—and so has Clear Choice Prep!
Equip your tutoring business with cutting-edge, fully digital test-prep courses. Our white-label, adaptive Digital SAT® practice tests feature precise, algorithmic scoring, providing your tutors and students with essential data for personalized instruction and score improvement.
Ready to elevate your test prep game? Schedule a complimentary demo and see the difference for yourself!