Many eons ago when I was in high school (a college prep Catholic boys school), we had required summer readings lists. These even applied for kids entering their freshman year. An entire class was assigned the same books (usually 5-7 literature classics) with some variations for students taking an honors course. During the first couple of weeks in the new school year, we were tested on our summer’s reading. Do these sort of required summer reading lists still exist?
Over the years, It seems the lists were made shorter and shorter, shifted to recommended books rather than required books, and become more diverse (either in terms of including more non-literary books or literature outside the classics).
I also remember seeing lists of recommended reading for students preparing for college. I knew several kids who took these lists seriously, reading and checking off as many books as they could before they entered college. I haven’t seen these sorts of lists in years, so I’m guessing they don’t exist anymore.
My kids had required reading in middle school and at least for their freshman year in HS (if they had reading lists after that I guess they were on their own!). in our public school system. If I remember right there was one required books and two others which could be chosen from a pretty big list. Some teachers asked for a paper/project regarding the summer reading at the start of the school year. The only downfall was that I never thought the list of books was as good as it should have been and I wondered if my kids might have been better off reading “lesser” books for pure enjoyment.
Frazzled kids always had summer reading in high school with different selections for each track. Also, there was summer homework for the AP classes. (Our students do very well on AP exams.)
@happy1, I know I didn’t particularly enjoy the novels I was required to read, though I would have read history or science eagerly, had those subjects been included on the lists. To this day, I seldom read fiction.
@frazzled2thecore & @bopper, I’m curious as to how many and what types of books are required these days.
Going into ninth grade, my son had to read “The Great Gatsby” and write a paper on it. That was all the direction he was given - no suggested topics. That was a little much for a 13-year-old! He worked hard on it and got an 80. It was a discouraging way to begin high school.
@zapfino - Mine attended high school several years apart, and the youngest recently graduated from college, but I did not see any great changes over the years I had students at the high school and do not expect that there have been many in the past few years, either.
Actually, though, frazzled kids like to read and read several of the books on their lists even though they needed only three to five for their English lit classes iirc. I do have a memory of my engineering grad reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin the summer before ninth grade. Perhaps my other kid also read that one. There seemed to be a good mix of classics, historical fiction, and popular fiction on the lists they got, so there was an attempt to appeal to diverse interests.
They were expected to produce papers based on summer reading during the first few weeks of fall term, so there was a little bit of wriggle room for anyone who had not yet finished the summer reading.
They also got some required reading before entering freshman year at their respective colleges, that they were expected to be prepared to discuss during orientation week.
Additionally, my youngest was involved in Reading Olympics (I think this is a Pennsylvania program?) during middle school and had lots of opportunity to read for pleasure. This was young adult fiction, the reading lists are released before summer vacation although events take place the following spring, and students competed in teams. Mostly female.
In our school district there are always summer reading lists.
I don’t recall if there were required books in middle school…I think they had to choose a certain number from a list.
In high school all of the advanced (honors and AP) English classes have ‘summer work’, consisting of a reading AND written assignment.
Our 5-star library system has an outstanding reading program. It is for adults, teen, kids and babies…yes, babies!
Reading is encouraged with prizes, coupons and events. The incentives they provide are both fun and educational.
We also have an independent bookstore in our area that attracts many popular authors. In fact I got to meet J.K. Rowling!!..before the Harry Potter craze. About 17 yrs ago, she autographed a copy of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone for my son…who was a baby at the time. My only regret is that I wish I had bought one for my daughter at the same time(!), but I went by the title and thought it was a ‘boy’ book.
P.S. The AP math and science classes also have summer packets that must be completed.
My kids have always had reading lists. The current high schooler gets an assignment that says “read book X and one book from column B of your choice and . . .” There is always a paper to be written and a test. This year there was an additional PowerPoint. There is always one required book for all and one around a theme that can be chosen from a list of pre-selected books that fit the theme. Last year was “All Quiet on the Western Front” which he liked quite a bit. There is also a book to be read in whatever history class he is taking that year, as well as a math packet. Plenty of work to keep him sharp and I appreciate that.
My kid’s academic magnet school has a crazy intense (I think excessive) work load every summer. Several books for English, one or two for social studies (with a paper to write), one in whatever language they were taking (with questions to answer) and a long and difficult math packet to get through and be tested on in the first week of school. This summer, as he heads off for college, will be his first in 8 years not to have schoolwork to do and I know he is going to SAVOR it…
Every AP class has some sort of summer assignment. I think a few of these are to weed out the kids who won’t be willing to put in the time during the school year. With upper classmen in our school taking 5 and 6 AP classes, it means a good week to two of the summer spent on schoolwork. All kids in all tracks have summer reading starting in middle school- usually two books- one assigned and one not.
It seems the first week of every year is spent letting kids who did not do the summer work catch up which means my kids have an easy first week with little to do which allows them to ease in.
It seems that at least some schools are using these summer assignments to get a headstart on AP or other advanced courses, perhaps because the amount of work can’t easily be completed in a regular school term. It seems another focus might be to maintain skills (e.g., math, languages) over the summer. This differs from when I was in school where the focus was on reading books that “college-bound students should have read” and on making sure we did something “productive” with our summers. It was only a secondary focus (if at all) to prepare for an upcoming course, as once we were tested on the summer reading, there was little or no further teaching or discussion around these books.
No summer reading lists, even in AP English. Minimal work in AP biology and some review sheets for AP chem or math. Can get it done the week or even weekend before school starts. I have always appreciated leaving the summers homework free. Our HS does very well on AP tests as well.
My kids’ high school, with an IB magnet program, requires specific books to be read over the summer, with written assignments due the first day of school in the fall.
No summer homework here, because they reserve the right to discover class period conflicts until at least the week before school starts. So, kids don’t really know what classes they will be taking until fall, especially if they want AP classes that have only 1 or 2 sections. I suppose the IB kids do know because they all take pretty much the same classes, so they may have summer homework.
My kids had summer reading lists, but I have to say I’m not a fan. I think kids need time to figure out what they enjoy reading and then once they get the “bug” there is no stopping them. I remember as a youngster (many moons ago) I loved to read the silly mystery books like Nancy Drew which made my elementary school librarian cringe. It was not great literature but they got me going as a lifetime reader. Similarly my S never enjoyed reading until I gave him some of Ian Flemming’s James Bond novels (“I never knew reading could be fun”), my D found that she enjoys reading plays more than novels (including Shakespeare), and my H loves WWII books. I don’t mind maybe one assigned book so the class can get off to a running start in the fall but I’d rather the kids had time to experiment and find things they love to read no matter what it is.
Never- for me or my son. Any Honors/AP classes would start at the beginning of the school year, not before. There was always plenty of time to cover material for students to get 5’s on AP exams- even though those were a month before the end of the school year. I definitely oppose trying to impose a burden during non-school times- including winter and spring vacations. Good students will find reading on their own. What do schools do when there is a student new just before classes start? How can they penalize students for not being enrolled in time to do the work? If those students do not need to do the work why should those who happen to already be there have to?
^ We re-located a lot, so my daughter did have to scramble one year to do some summer reading for an AP course she was going to take at her new school. Other than that, she never had summer reading assignment. I didn’t worry about since she was always a reader from an early age.
I’m somewhat conflicted, though, about the idea of whether there are certain books kids heading to college should have read. They’re not likely to have read them all just in their English classes, and unless they read them in high school, they’re unlikely to be exposed to them later (unless they major in literature or a related field).
My daughter has a reading list for AP world history that most they are supposed to start in summer but I think a procrastinator could put it off. Four books and book reports total, 2 due around Thankgiving and 2 in the spring. D is not a terrible procrastinator and she’s not a fast reader so she will probably do at least one over summer.
She also has some reading for DE English. One novel, I think.
I was just relieved when she was done with Accelerated Reader. Their school had lots of restrictions on what they coukd and couldn’t read. Just made it miserable.