| 06/22/2007 |
| Students still have to hit the books |
| Jessica Selby , Daily Times |
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Heading to the beach for the day? You might want to take along a
book. Many students in the Kent County area, regardless of age, are required to participate in summer reading programs. The requirements vary from school to school, grade to grade and from community to community, but the concept is basically the same across the board - get a book and read it. The lists of suggested books for Coventry High School are fairly lengthy and differ from grade to grade. A complete list of the suggested books can be located on Coventry High School's Web site at http://schools.coventryschools.net/highschool/. Web sites for all of Coventry's schools can be accessed at http://schools.coventryschools.net/. The suggested and required reading books for all grades were selected by a committee, according to Judith Baxter, head of the English department at Coventry High School. Teachers, administrators, librarians and parents all sat on the committee, Baxter said. The books are selected based on the student's grade-level (based on the grade the student will enter into in the 2007-2008 school year). Short summaries are provided for each title that is listed to help students in the selection process, Baxter said. It is vital that students select a book that is interesting to them, she said. "We have the 25-books standard that we have to meet, so we have to require our students to read over the summer in order to meet the standard," Baxter said. "Initially, I do recall that there was some resistance to the summer reading requirement but now it has actually become so much a part of the culture that the kids just expect it and some even look for it." The 25-books standard requires that Coventry students show evidence of having read 25 books over the course of the year. There is no slacking off on the requirement either, Baxter. Coventry High School English teachers make sure their students are fulfilling the requirement by presenting them with a standardized test based on the required book in September. Some teachers, and this varies from teacher to teacher, according to Baxter, also ask their students to do "journal entries reflective of the book, or write a short essay on the book," that they read as their choice. Teachers can ask their students to complete any form of assignment to ensure that they read the optional book, said Baxter, but some do not. "This is not supposed to be imposed as a punishment," Baxter said. "Study after study reveals that the more you read, the better reader you are, so to take the entire summer off would just be inconsistent with our teaching." Students at the middle and elementary schools in Coventry are also asked to read over the summer but their assignments are not as regimented as they are at the high school level, she said. At West Warwick High School, while all students are encouraged to read over the summer, only the honors English classes are required to complete a specific summer reading assignment, according to information provided by the chairman of the English department. The information provided by the chairman indicates students are given a list of novels to select from. They are also given the choice to select from different lists, the information indicates, and next year's entering junior honor students were asked to choose a book from "Outstanding Books for the College Bound," compiled by the American Library Association. According to the information from the West Warwick High School English department, when students return to school following summer break, they are given an assessment for each book they read. Students are encouraged to take notes while doing their summer reading, according to the information, and, in some cases, are allowed to use these notes to complete the assessments. The teacher will then collect and verify the notes. There is not a lot of variation from school to school in the types of books required for summer reading, but the books and assessments become progressively more challenging from grade to grade, the information states. John F. Deering Middle School has the seventh-grade summer reading list posted on its Web site. Web sites for all the West Warwick school can be accessed through westwarwick.ri.schoolwebpages.com/.
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