Teachers push their students to read over the summer, and for good reason. Regularly reading in summer months when school’s not in session has been tied to all sorts of positive results, from preventing a loss of literacy skills to improving reading proficiency to building a lifelong affinity for pleasure reading.
But summer reading isn’t just for students.
Without the daily demands of the classroom and the work that so many teachers take home to do in the evenings and weekends throughout the school year, summer presents perhaps the best opportunity to squeeze in reading—other than poring over curricula objectives and student essays, that is.
So, what’s on teachers’ reading list this summer?
Education Week posed the question to teachers in an unscientific online poll earlier this month. The robust level of responses assured us that teachers do, in fact, practice what they preach—at least with regards to summer reading.
Based on our sample, it appears that teachers choose to read a bit of everything: fantasy, historical accounts, educational pedagogy, science fiction, classics, how-to, inspirational, escapist, and pretty much every other genre out there.
The following selection of books, culled from teachers’ summer reading lists, provides a window into the active, curious minds of educators. Responses were edited for length and clarity.
Selections that show some teachers’ minds never stray far from their job
I’m reading a lot of the books in my classroom library in order to place them on a new rubric our district just introduced. I’ve read Kira Salak’s “The Cruelest Journey: 600 Miles to Timbuktu,” Caroline van Hemert’s “The Sun is a Compass: 6,000 Miles Into the Alaskan Wilds,” Natalie Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting,” and Victoria Aveyard’s “Red Queen.”
I’m still working on Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus,” Stephen King’s “Insomnia,” Amy Tan’s “Saving Fish from Drowning,” and a few other titles that I need to become more familiar with for student benefit.
—Tonya C.
I’m reading topics involving differentiating in the modern classroom as well as effective literacy instruction, to name a few.
“Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara, “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, and “Bad Therapy” by Abigail Shrier.
Book lists that suggest a voracious appetite for learning
Service manual for Daddy’s last car, étude study and intonation practice intervals for double bass, Stephen Hawkings’ ”Universe” and Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001: The Final Odyssey.”
—Joseph T.
Just finished “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI” by Ethan Mollick; finally read “Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results” by James Clear; and, just for fun: “The Paris Novel,” by Ruth Reichl, which was delightful!
—Tara M.
The Cesar Chavez autobiography, “It” by Stephen King, “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics” by James Oakes, “Raising Critical Thinkers” by Julie Bogart, “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Radden Keefe.
“The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.
Without reading too much into it, this respondent’s last selection leaves us pondering his intentions:
“This Side of Paradise,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and “How to Retire Earlier,” by Robert Charlton.
Read all the responses to the original LinkedIn post here. And check out Education Week’s own recommendations for additional summer reads and podcasts:
