Summer Reading for English 9
Summer Assignment
The SMHS English Department welcomes you. We're excited to welcome you to the Mustang family and share our hunger for knowledge and our love for reading.
Some may be curious why we ask students to read over the summer. Studies have shown that “Regardless of previous achievement…children who read more books fared better on reading comprehension tests in the fall than their peers who hadn’t read over the summer…Studies since the 1970’s have pointed to reading as one way to stem the summer learning losses and bridge the achievement gaps that widen over time” [1]. Losing the knowledge that you have gained over the course of a school year is unacceptable to us and we hope it is to you as well. Reading will help to alleviate this gap in achievement.
In the interest of locking in content and keeping skills sharp from 8th grade English, we strongly encourage students to read TWO novels over the course of the summer. Because students feed into San Marin from several nearby schools and communicating with ALL incoming 8th graders in a timely manner, giving them enough time to complete a summer reading assignment, has proved next to impossible, we have decided to temporarily NOT require a summer reading assignment. I know that the website was not updated to reflect this and so some parents and students were under the impression that there was a summer reading assignment-- to you we are sorry. I will see if teachers would be open to accepting extra credit for those of you who did some work. We will hit the books come end of summer and fall including several high interest book group options.
Sincerely,
Adam Williams
[email protected]
The SMHS English Department welcomes you. We're excited to welcome you to the Mustang family and share our hunger for knowledge and our love for reading.
Some may be curious why we ask students to read over the summer. Studies have shown that “Regardless of previous achievement…children who read more books fared better on reading comprehension tests in the fall than their peers who hadn’t read over the summer…Studies since the 1970’s have pointed to reading as one way to stem the summer learning losses and bridge the achievement gaps that widen over time” [1]. Losing the knowledge that you have gained over the course of a school year is unacceptable to us and we hope it is to you as well. Reading will help to alleviate this gap in achievement.
In the interest of locking in content and keeping skills sharp from 8th grade English, we strongly encourage students to read TWO novels over the course of the summer. Because students feed into San Marin from several nearby schools and communicating with ALL incoming 8th graders in a timely manner, giving them enough time to complete a summer reading assignment, has proved next to impossible, we have decided to temporarily NOT require a summer reading assignment. I know that the website was not updated to reflect this and so some parents and students were under the impression that there was a summer reading assignment-- to you we are sorry. I will see if teachers would be open to accepting extra credit for those of you who did some work. We will hit the books come end of summer and fall including several high interest book group options.
Sincerely,
Adam Williams
[email protected]