Summer Reading Readying Students For School Year

Ready or not, here comes school.

It might be hard to believe for some, but summer is just about over and the Morris School District will be welcoming students back Tuesday, Sept. 7.

"We're ready to open," Superintendent Thomas Ficarra said at last week's Board of Education meeting. "The schedules are completed and mailed out. We're confident it's all together and ready to run. We'll find out on Tuesday."

On one front incoming students might be at an advantage are those who participated in the district's mandatory summer reading program.

Board of Education member Lynn Horowitz said at the meeting that her daughter, Lia, an incoming senior, had "devoured" her selection, "Extremely Loud and Uncomfortably Close," by Jonathan Safran Foer.

"That used to be the biggest [hurdle]," she said. "But, it's working."

Maryann Reilly, the director of curriculum at Morristown High School, said, "A love to read should be fostered."

The program is generally broken into two groups– general and specific assignment reading. For some classes, an Advanced Placement English class, for example, students might be required to read certain texts to prepare them for the class, Reilly said.

Reilly said building a love for reading early on gives students greater options, not just in the career force or in school, but in general. "On days when you need comfort, a book can be a very fine friend," she said.

The district, she said, wants students to be able to choose their books, not just have books assigned to them whenever possible. Reilly said it keeps kids in the habit of reading because choice matters.

Students in intermediate grades tend to read five-to-six books during the summer, Reilly said, because the complexity of those books is lower. Come high school, most students should read one-to-two books of greater complexity, she said.

Rather than giving students tests on what they read, Reilly said the district wants to "link reading to experience.

"What can you apply to this new situation," she said. "I think choice is highly successful."

Reilly cited an incoming freshman from Frelinghuysen Middle School that, with choice reading emphasized, showed that "we had students who were very savvy at selecting texts," she said. "Students knew authors, books and had preferences. You do see a measurable difference."

Unrestricted summer reading, where students are given the privilege to choose what they can read, is something Reilly sees as critically important. "When they have a habit of reading, that will hold them in good stead, because reading matters," she said.