Technology mediating summer reading loss

Reading can seem like a daunting task to a student when they are given a book to read instead of asked to read any book they would like. I recently read a book entitled The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, who advocates reading nonstop in her elementary school classroom. Some would argue she goes too far by demanding 30-45 minutes of in-class reading time every day and others would say she is not doing enough. In either case, one of the things she allows is for students to choose books of their own, eventually leading to her recommending some for them to read. This trust that develops between teacher and students comes from the teacher understanding the needs and desires of the child and working with him or her to develop good reading habits.

A program in New York City was designed to combat summer reading loss by providing iPads pre-loaded with all kinds of books and a weekly meetup to discuss some of the books with a teacher. Called SummerSail, it was offered by a company called LightSail that specializes in providing digital books for classrooms.

What I find most interesting about the article and the program is that the critique that Donalyn Miller had about mandating books to read is still there, just with more selection. One of the students was quoted:

Parrales, for one, said she still preferred reading “real” books. Her tablet required Internet access and did not have enough of a selection of anime, her favorite genre.

Perhaps a cheaper option than a $400 iPad with a bunch of books would be something like a $70 Kindle and a gift card for $300 to the Amazon bookstore so students could download and read whatever they want.