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We want adolescents to live in a book flood with "literally-finger-tip access to books (Allington Mc-Gill Franzen, 2013)" because physical access to books positively affects young people's reading achievement (Neuman & Celano, 2012), the level of schooling they attain (Evans, et. al, 2014), and their motivation to read (Guthrie, 2002). Children need books in their ELA classrooms (Tatum, 2014; Worthy & Roser, 2010), school libraries staffed by degreed librarians (Kachel & Lance, 2013), access to public libraries in their communities (Krashen, Lee, & McQuillan, 2012), and book ownership at home (Neuman & Celano, 2012). Unfortunately, too many children-especially children in urban and rural communities, who are disproportionately children of color-live in book deserts (Wong, 2016). They do not have meaningful, consistent access to books at school, at home, or in their communities.
This gap in access to books perpetuates inequalities between low-income students and middle-income ones. While schools scramble to implement intervention programs like tutoring and summer school, there is little evidence that such programs have a long-term positive effect on children's reading achievement and reading motivation (Allington & McGill Franzen, 2013). We have overwhelming evidence that access to books is the game changer for kids. Providing adolescents with access to books gives them the tools they need to develop strong literacy skills and a lifelong orientation toward reading (Guthrie, 2008). How can we increase young people's access to books in schools, communities, and homes and guarantee our children have access to books 365 days a year? This is a complex problem to solve, and each school community has distinct needs and concerns. Talking about book access among ourselves, we could see that no one solution met the needs of every school community. Here are some of our ideas.
Donalyn: For many low-income (and middle-income) students, their primary sources of reading material are their classroom and school libraries. When schools close over the summer, many young people lose their book access. When students do not read much over the summer, they lose academic ground and reading momentum (Kim, 2004). While many schools assign summer reading or develop summer reading programs, such activities do not meet the reading access needs of 100 percent of the students in the school.
The most effective summer reading programs physically...