Summer reading can be a game changer for students. Reading is a great way to learn about new topics/time periods, expand your vocabulary, and keep up your reading skills and stamina during the summer break. Keep reading to learn about the benefits of summer reading and suggestions for your summer reading list!
Benefits of Summer Reading
Summer reading is great for all students, but it also has vocabulary-building benefits for students planning to take the SAT/ACT, ISEE/SSAT/HSPT, or other standardized tests. There is plenty of research supporting the benefits of summer reading. There are a number of summer reading benefits:
Build Vocabulary
Reading is one of the best ways to expand your vocabulary. Reading provides context for new words and a storyline to help remember them. Studies consistently show that students who read more have more robust vocabularies. The more you read, the more words you learn, and the more words you know, the more fun it is to read!
Prevent Summer Skill Regression
You may have heard of the “summer slump” or “summer slide”, in which students can lose up to 34% of the learned skills from the previous year! Reading in particular has been shown to be a predictor of long-term student success, meaning that keeping up reading skills is critical. Summer reading is one way to prevent the summer slide.
Build Reading Skills
Building reading skills is critical for long-term academic success! Reading recreationally can complement students’ school reading and help boost their skills.
Cost Effective Summer Activity
Summer reading is a great cost-effective activity! Summer camps and programs are great for students, but they can be costly. Library memberships are free (except for late fees!) and many libraries offer summer reading contests, so students can even win prizes for their summer reading!
Build Critical Thinking Skills
Reading is a great way to build critical thinking skills, as students practice interpreting and questioning written content. Critical thinking skills are crucial in life, especially amidst heavy social media use and the sheer volume of content students are exposed to.
Add Structure to Summer Break
Reading regularly can help add a little bit of light structure to an empty summer break. Many students, especially neurodivergent students, struggle with the sudden loss of structure and routine when the school year ends. Reading trackers (paper or digital) and summer reading contests can help maintain momentum, goals, and structure throughout the summer.
Making Summer Reading Successful
From my own experience, I know it’s easy to make a plan for summer reading, then suddenly it’s the end of the summer and I haven’t read anything. There are various executive functioning skill deficits – such as working memory, time blindness, and task initiation – that can make summer reading difficult. There are several strategies to help with this:
Summer reading challenges through libraries, schools, online organizations, and even the New York Times can help provide students with incentives to keep them engaged with reading. Reading with friends or book clubs can also help maintain momentum and accountability. If your student needs more help with structure and support over the summer, an executive function coach may be able to help!
Choosing Summer Reading Material
If you try to read something you’re not interested in, you most likely won’t read it. The act of reading is more important than what you actually read, so make sure you pick something that you like! If you prefer reading political or technology articles, find a journal that you like and read an article every day. If you prefer fiction, find some authors or genres that you enjoy. Don’t be afraid to put a book down if it isn’t as interesting as you thought it’d be – just make sure to pick a new one up!
Summer Reading Lists by Grade Level
These lists are organized to prioritize skills, vocabulary, and literary depth based on general grade-level criteria. However, every student is different. Some students may be reading at a higher or lower grade level than the grade that they’re in, and that’s okay! The most important part is to keep reading – at any level. Mindfish also has another reading list geared towards ACT/SAT preparation.
8th Grade Reading List (Foundation Building)
At this stage, students should read books with slightly challenging language and deep themes.
| Book | Author | Genre |
| The Giver | Lois Lowry | Dystopian |
| The Call of the Wild | Jack London | Adventure |
| Anne of Green Gables | L.M. Montgomery | Classic |
| The Hobbit | J.R.R. Tolkien | Fantasy |
| Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | Historical Fiction |
| Animal Farm | George Orwell | Political Satire |
| A Wrinkle in Time | Madeleine L’Engle | Science Fiction |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury | Dystopian |
| Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson | Adventure |
| The Outsiders | S.E. Hinton | Coming-of-Age |
| Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry | Mildred D. Taylor | Historical Fiction |
9th Grade Reading List (Building Complexity)
Books at this level introduce more advanced sentence structures and vocabulary.
| Book | Author | Genre |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | Classic |
| The Scarlet Letter | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Historical Fiction |
| Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | Classic |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | Gothic Fiction |
| The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Robert Louis Stevenson | Horror |
| Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | Dystopian |
| Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | Classic |
| I Am Malala | Malala Yousafzai | Memoir |
| The Princess Bride | William Goldman | Fantasy/Adventure |
| The House on Mango Street | Sandra Cisneros | Coming-of-Age |
| Ender’s Game | Orson Scott Card | Science Fiction |
10th Grade Reading List (Strengthening Comprehension & Context)
These books have abstract themes, figurative language, and sophisticated vocabulary.
| Book | Author | Genre |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | Romance |
| Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | Gothic Horror |
| The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | Adventure |
| 1984 | George Orwell | Dystopian |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | Historical Fiction |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut | Satire/Science Fiction |
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | Classic Romance |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | Historical Fiction |
| The Book Thief | Markus Zusak | Historical Fiction |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe | Historical Fiction |
| Life of Pi | Yann Martel | Adventure |
11th Grade Reading List (Advanced Vocabulary & Complex Themes)
Books at this level challenge students with rich vocabulary and deep ideas.
| Book | Author | Genre |
| Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Psychological Fiction |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Classic |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Brontë | Gothic Romance |
| The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway | Literary Fiction |
| Moby-Dick | Herman Melville | Adventure |
| Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | Satire |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison | Historical Fiction |
| One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel García Márquez | Magical Realism |
| A Raisin in the Sun | Lorraine Hansberry | Drama |
| The Road | Cormac McCarthy | Post-Apocalyptic Fiction |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger | Coming-of-Age |
12th Grade Reading List (Final Prep & Challenging Reads)
These books reflect the rigor of college-level reading and SAT/ACT vocabulary.
| Book | Author | Genre |
| The Brothers Karamazov | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Psychological Fiction |
| Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | Classic |
| Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | Adventure |
| East of Eden | John Steinbeck | Literary Fiction |
| Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | Historical Fiction |
| The Canterbury Tales | Geoffrey Chaucer | Classic |
| Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston | Classic |
| The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka | Existentialist Fiction |
| The Sound and the Fury | William Faulkner | Southern Gothic |
| The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood | Dystopian |
| Blood Meridian | Cormac McCarthy | Western |
Remember, reading is good for you and exposes you to a whole world of ideas and creativity. Reading is really fun once you discover what you like to read, and summer is a great time to explore different genres! While it may seem anticlimactic at first, reading will benefit all students in the long-run. So, head to your local library and start exploring! Happy reading!
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