Not many students read over the summer. Many students don’t read when school is not in session, but summer reading does have benefits.

Many students dislike reading over the summer, either because they don’t find interest in the book, or they dislike reading in general. For many students, the idea of reading over the summer does not appeal to them. Some students do other things over the summer and find that they don’t have the time for reading.

Students don’t read over the summer for other reasons such as not having good reading skills or not being able to focus long enough to read anything, according to scholastic.com.

Advanced English classes at Faith Lutheran often assign books to read over the summer, but regular English classes only assign books during the school year. If a student moves to an advanced English class from a regular English class, they will also have to read an assigned book over the summer.

Some reading material can provide a mental challenge for readers, and certain books, both fiction and nonfiction, offer other bits of knowledge and information besides English skills, according to pewinternet.org. Summer reading is important for students because it can help improve their reading skills and prevent them from forgetting important facts. Reading improves a student’s knowledge, so it is important to read in the summer to keep up education.

To encourage reading, libraries and schools have summer reading challenges. Faith Lutheran uses Scholastic’s summer reading challenges to encourage students to read over the summer.

The Scholastic reading challenge for the summer of 2016 involves counting up how many minutes a student has read. It lasts from May to September  2016. On Scholastic’s website, a student can check how many minutes their school has read all together.

“It keeps kids actively reading,” said the librarian, Melanie Bowline. “It also helps improve their vocabulary.”

Bowline also said that summer reading challenges aim to prevent boredom and help students academically when they come back to school in the fall.

“I once did this reading challenge where we challenged everyone to read books by the end of the month, and that was really fun,” said seventh grade student Alexa Bell.

Bell said she likes reading, even over the summer. She also said she would rather read a book that she wants to read over the summer instead of an assigned book.

Seventh grader Marie Schlaf said she doesn’t read much or take part in reading challenges over the summer because she is busy with other things, such as sports.