One of our team members recently shared a story about her daughter finishing a book late at night at the start of summer break. The next morning, before anyone else in the house was awake, she had already started the sequel.
No one had reminded her to read; there was no reading log to fill out or comprehension questions to answer. She simply wanted to get back into the story.
That kind of reading experience is what many teachers hope for when they send students home for the summer.
And in many classrooms, we see how powerful it can be when students return in August already carrying conversations about characters, themes, or ideas from books they chose to keep reading on their own.
That’s part of why we created the RedThread Summer Reading Guide 2026.
The RedThread 2026 Summer Reading Guide for Grades K–8 includes fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, read-aloud recommendations, and independent reading suggestions designed to help students keep reading throughout the summer.
This guide was created for teachers, instructional coaches, librarians, and school leaders to share with families, helping students find books they genuinely want to keep reading all summer long.
When students spend the summer immersed in books that sustain their attention across chapters and weeks, they return to school with stronger reading stamina, richer background knowledge, and a deeper sense of themselves as readers.
In many schools, conversations about summer reading understandably focus on preventing learning loss.
Continued reading practice over the summer is important. In many classrooms, we also see that the type of reading experience students have is just as important as the amount they read.
Students in upper elementary and middle school are navigating increasingly complex texts. They are being asked to:
Those capacities develop over time through sustained engagement with whole books.
When students spend part of the summer immersed in novels, nonfiction series, memoirs, graphic novels, or read-alouds, they genuinely want to continue reading and build reading stamina while also developing the habits of attention and meaning-making that increasingly require stronger comprehension.
In many schools, summer reading communication focuses primarily on accountability, such as reading logs, required minutes, or assigned titles.
But one pattern we often notice is that families are looking for something more practical: how to make reading feel sustainable and enjoyable throughout the summer months.
Our Director of Curriculum, Jillian Roche, often encourages schools to share a few simple ideas with families alongside summer reading lists.
Students are far more likely to continue reading when they feel a sense of ownership over what they read.
That sometimes means students choose graphic novels, fantasy series, sports books, mysteries, or books that adults might not initially expect them to pick up. But when students want to return to a book independently, they begin to build the kind of sustained reading habits that are difficult to cultivate through compliance alone.
In many classrooms, we hear teachers talk about students who rarely experience reading as social or conversational outside of school.
But older students often still enjoy:
Those experiences can help students associate reading with connection and conversation rather than only assignment completion.
One quality we see in families with strong summer reading habits is consistency.
Reading before bed, after breakfast, during quiet afternoons, or while traveling can help make reading part of the rhythm of summer rather than something students postpone or avoid.
Access can make an enormous difference in whether students continue reading over the summer.
Public libraries, digital collections, and apps like Libby can help families access a much wider range of books. Audiobooks can also help students sustain attention while reading longer or more complex texts independently.
When schools share these kinds of practical supports alongside reading lists, summer reading can feel more manageable and meaningful for families.
What Helps Students Keep Reading During the Summer?
Students are more likely to continue reading over the summer when they can choose books connected to their interests, identities, and curiosity. Access to engaging series, graphic novels, nonfiction, and family reading routines often impacts children more than assigning large amounts of required reading.
Many summer reading lists organize books primarily by reading level or age band.
That can certainly help families get started. But students are far more likely to continue reading when books also connect to:
A strong summer reading list gives students multiple entry points into reading.
That includes:
The goal is to help students find the book they want to keep returning to tomorrow.
The RedThread 2026 Summer Reading Guide for Grades K–8 was designed as a printable family resource, a summer reading handout, or a companion to end-of-year literacy communication.
The books in this guide were selected to help students sustain attention, build reading stamina, and stay engaged with reading across the summer months.
We prioritized books that:
The guide includes:
Most importantly, the guide is designed around helping students experience reading as something worth continuing.
Below is a family letter schools are welcome to adapt and share.
Dear Families,
As summer begins, many of us are thinking about how to help students stay connected to reading in ways that feel joyful, meaningful, and sustainable.
One of the strongest ways students continue growing as readers over the summer is by finding books they genuinely want to keep reading. When students become immersed in stories, series, topics, and characters they care about, they build reading stamina, vocabulary, knowledge, and confidence naturally over time.
To support that, we’re sharing the RedThread Summer Reading Guide for Grades K–8, which includes a wide range of book recommendations across genres, interests, and grade levels:
As you support your child’s reading this summer, here are a few suggestions from Jillian Roche, Director of Curriculum for RedThread Literacy:
Most importantly, we hope students experience reading as something they want to return to, not simply another assignment to complete.
We hope this guide helps your family discover books that spark curiosity, conversation, and joyful reading all summer long.
Strong summer reading lists usually include a wide range of genres, formats, and topics so students can find books they genuinely want to continue reading.
In many classrooms, we see students sustain reading longer when they have access to:
A strong summer reading list is not only organized by reading level. It also helps students find books connected to curiosity, identity, and meaningful ideas.
Absolutely! Graphic novels still require students to track plot, interpret character motivations, analyze visual information, and sustain attention over longer texts.
For many students, graphic novels can become an important entry point into stronger reading habits and greater reading stamina. In classrooms, we see students who begin with graphic novels gradually build confidence that transfers into other kinds of texts over time.
One pattern that often helps is shifting summer reading away from compliance and toward access and enjoyment.
Schools can support summer reading by:
Students are more likely to keep reading when the focus shifts to “find a book you want to return to” rather than “complete this task.”
There is no single “correct” number of books students should read over the summer.
In many cases, sustained engagement with a few meaningful books can support stronger reading habits than rushing through a larger quantity of disconnected texts.
What is most important is whether students are: