Use the summer for reading!

I tell my students that it is most time-consuming to raise their scores on the reading sections of the college entrance examinations because they need to read.  A LOT.  Then I tell them that summer is the perfect time to work on this.

This is my annual post to encourage reading.  I was inspired to get off my duff and write this year's edition by this article.

The article looks at what students are reading.  There is good news and bad news.  The good news:  reading is not dead.  Quite a few kids are reading and some of them read quite a bit.  The bad news:  too many kids read hardly anything, and when they do read, they choose books that are written at an easy reading level.

The article includes a plea for students to read the classics and includes an argument for a students reading list to include both fiction and non-fiction.  It points out that raising your reading level requires work - which is probably why kids are avoiding it - but that when students make the effort they enjoy the more difficult books.

Here's the thing.  Students who read regularly and who can comprehend material at a 11th grade level or higher will have a tremendous advantage on their college entrance exams, in college and later in life.  For a quick-and-dirty estimate of the reading level of a piece of writing, see this previous post.