North Carolina Community Collaborates to Connect Kids With Books, Build Reading Ability Through Summer Reading

As educators and administrators across the country focus their efforts on improving students' reading skills, many students show measurable success by the end of the school year. However, once the last bell of the year rings, a whole new challenge begins—ensuring that students retain the gains they have achieved in reading ability over the summer break. Dubbed summer reading "loss" or "slide," this dilemma has caused consternation in educators everywhere, with hard-won improvements being lost during summers filled with sun, fun and often very little reading among school-aged children. With no regular assignments and challenges to keep them engaged, students look elsewhere for entertainment and lose the skills they-and their teachers-worked so hard to build over the school year. However, a study by Dr. James Sangil Kim, assistant professor of education at Harvard University, demonstrated that students' reading skills could grow over the summer if they were able to select books based on their personal interests and at their Lexile reading levels. Last summer, a community coalition in Durham, N.C., worked together to roll out a summer reading program.