Education Commons^™

Scaffolding Choice, Increasing Access: A Summer Initiative To Promote Middle School Students’ Book Reading, Lauren Capotosto

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Middle schools often mandate summer reading as a means of stemming summer learning loss, but research suggests that many students do not read any books during the summer months. Limited book access and difficulties self-selecting books are two barriers that can impact students’ summer reading practices. To address these challenges, students in one Grade 7 classroom participated in an initiative designed to scaffold book choices prior to summer break and to increase students’ access to high-interest books. Compared to students in a randomly selected business-as-usual classroom, students who participated in the book scaffolding initiative were more likely to read at …