In 1996, a team of researchers, professors and graduate students out of the University of Missouri-Columbia conducted a study that changed the nation’s views on summer reading.

The team’s study proved that children lose reading skills over summer break. It showed that while the students are able to build the skills up during the school year, the cycle remains each summer, ultimately stunting reading comprehension skills to where they could or should be. 

The phenomenon was later coined as the “summer slide,” and researchers have kept a tab on the trend ever since. A 2020 study showed children in 3rd to 5th grades lost around 20% of the reading skills they gained the previous school year. Experts say that students in 3rd to 8th grade are more vulnerable to falling into the summer slide. 

Summit County library director Stephanie Ralph said research on the importance of summer reading is ample, and parents leading by example can make a difference. 

“For kids who live in homes where there are books available … being around parents who they see reading rather than just on their phones and devices, that’s very impactful,” Ralph said. 

Assistant director Sarah Hulsey said more and more experts are encouraging parents to get started on building their children’s reading comprehension skills as soon as possible, pointing to the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten initiative, which is a program the library encourages young families to participate in. 

According to the organization’s website, the premise of 1000 Books Before Kindergarten is that parents are children’s first education providers during the critical years of 0-5, and reading to them can help establish literacy skills early on. 

Ralph said the Summit County libraries didn’t want to stop at that initiative and added its own, encouraging students to read 100 books, outside of school, before high school graduation.

“What we see is that those kids get so focused on schoolwork that they forget about the enriching aspects of reading as well,” Ralph said.  

Summit County libraries participate in the state’s summer reading program each year in which the Colorado State Library chooses a theme and libraries across the state compile a series of books for various ages that match the theme.

Ralph said the Summit Libraries don’t just stop at compiling lists of books, they seek to make the program as enriching as possible.

“For us, it’s an opportunity to bring in performers and get the community together,” Ralph said. 

She said the libraries look to provide incentives to reading and donations from the community. Hulsey said Theater SilCo offers their summer camp as a prize and the Art Stop Makerspace in Silverthorne donates activities among others. 

Ralph said this year the libraries even expanded what they do to encourage adults to read during the summer. 

The Summit County Libraries use a platform called Beanstack where anyone can keep tabs on their summer reading progress, not just kids. To learn more about Beanstack, visit SummitCountyLibraries.beanstack.org. To learn more about what’s on the libraries’ summer reading lists, visit Tinyurl.com/56d7zhr2.