Keeping Reading Lives Alive: Summer Literacy Playlists for Multilingual Learners

I was always a book worm.

Growing up, my teachers didn’t need to assign summer reading for me. I figured out how to order from book clubs when I was five. I’d get a postcard out of the “Highlights” magazine at the doctor’s or dentist’s office, fill it out, and wait on the porch with a nickel, which the mail carrier gladly accepted to cover the postage.

Clearly, life was different then.

Both expectations and our communities have evolved. Assigning summer reading to prevent the slide is now requisite. But what works for a bookworm like me is not the norm in most classrooms. And we can’t assume that our learners—particularly those who are linguistically marginalized—have adequate resources to meet the demands of a reading list that does not account for their real lived experiences.

So, what’s an educator to do?

From Lists to Routines

My starting point is always equity and psychological safety¹. Ask yourself this: Does every learner see a path into the work, regardless of language, identity, or prior achievement? If the answer is “No” (or “I don’t know”), a beautifully curated list won’t make much difference.

Instead of leading with “What should they read?” I invite you to start with “What can they reasonably do, again and again, with whatever texts and resources they actually have at home?”

That shift—from titles to routines—matters for multilingual learners (MLLs) who are navigating new languages, new schools, and sometimes new countries. It moves us from access toward mastery:

“Here’s the list” —> “Here’s what you can reliably do with any text you encounter.”

The Summer Literacy “Playlist”

One simple structure is a summer literacy “playlist”: a repeatable 20‑minute routine composed of three “tracks” learners and their families can adapt to their own languages, schedules, and resources. This works whether you’re using Connections: Literature, another core program, digital library tools, or photocopied short texts.

A best practice is to model the playlist with your learners two to three weeks before school ends:

Track 1: Text – Read in Any Language (10 minutes)

Learners choose a text they can reasonably access: a classroom anthology, a library book, a PDF on a phone, a web article, a graphic novel, or even a community newspaper. Encourage them to read, write, and think using their full linguistic repertoires: school English, home language, a sociocultural English (e.g., African American English, Chicano English), or translanguaging, blending their home language with school English – without apology.

Track 2: Talk – With Someone Else in Any Language (5 minutes)

In class, this might be a “turn-and-talk” at home they might talk with a family member, friend, caregiver—even a pet. Remember, this is about their lived experiences, and many learners may find themselves alone at home for extended periods of time, so we keep the talk flexible and low-pressure. Center this talk on one Essential Question or big idea, such as:

• “What surprised you?”
• “Where did you see courage?”
• “What feels familiar from your own life?”

Use this as an opportunity to lean into contributor safety[1] by normalizing many ways of speaking and stressing that all contributions have value.

Track 3: Demo – Show What You Know in Any Format (5 minutes)

Prompt learners to create a list, a sketch with labels, a comic strip, or a short paragraph. Intentionally use scaffolds—such as sentence stems, word banks, and partially completed frames—to move learners toward written English while honoring the thinking they just did in their other languages. The text can change daily; the routine stays the same. That predictability lowers the affective filter for multilingual learners and supports learner safety¹—the sense that it’s safe to try, make errors, and grow.

Three Classroom Moves Before Summer

You can layer these moves onto whatever curriculum you use and the theme your current unit is focused on.

1. Build Three Short Playlists

Rather than a single, long list, design three thematic mini‑playlists, each anchored in an Essential Question (EQ) that matters to adolescents.

For example:

• Playlist 1: “Finding Your Voice” —EQ: Whose voices get heard, and why?
• Playlist 2: “Belonging Across Borders” —EQ: What makes a place feel like home?
• Playlist 3: “Standing Up, Standing With” —EQ: When is it worth taking a risk?

Each playlist includes guidance for the three tracks:

• Track 1: Text. It could be your current literary work under study or 2–3 short texts (any mix of print/digital, fiction/nonfiction, school or community sources).
• Track 2: Talk. The one Essential Question that anchors discussion.
• Track 3: Demo. One or two sentence frames for the “show what you know” prompt – for example, “One moment that shows courage is…” or “A time I felt in-between was when…”.

The goal is not coverage; it’s depth, connection, and routines.

2. Normalize Translanguaging and Multiple Modalities

Multilingual learners should not have to check their languages at the classroom door to participate. I encourage you to explicitly engage in these behaviors:

• During Track 1, invite learners to read in any language, including bilingual texts or side‑by‑side translations they create with peers.
• During Track 2, teach and name translanguaging as a legitimate strategy: “Think and talk in the language that lets you go deepest.”
• During Track 3, use collaborative tasks—small posters, comics, timelines, or short videos—to demonstrate understanding, then use scaffolds to bring the key ideas into school English as needed.

When we validate multilingual expression in front of the whole class, we strengthen inclusion safety¹ and contributor safety¹ for linguistically marginalized learners.

3. Run The Summer Literacy Playlist in Class

We can’t just announce norms; we must teach and rehearse them. Spend the last two weeks of school running the full playlist in class so learners experience success with it before they are on their own.

A sample 20‑minute mini‑lesson:

• The Sampler (2 minutes). Revisit the Essential Question and preview choices. These two minutes should be scaffolded off after the first few runs of the playlist.

• Track 1: Text (10 minutes). Independent or paired reading in any language while you circulate, affirm language choices, and offer quick conferring.
• Track 2: Talk (5 minutes). Structured talk (turn-and-talk in any language, think‑pair‑share, quick circle, or a two‑question discussion). Ground rules for respect and participation are modeled and reinforced, in line with the contributor safety¹ strategies.
• Track 3: Demo (5 minutes). Quickwrite or quick collaborative task using a stem or frame.

Before the last few days of school, learners should be able to describe the routine in their own words, teach it to a sibling or peer, and adapt it to different texts or environments.

Supporting Families Without Assuming Resources

From a culturally competent lens, we cannot assume that all families have shelves of books, quiet rooms, or adults available for support. At the same time, we shouldn’t assume deficits either. Many families bring rich storytelling traditions, songs, media, and multilingual practices that can fuel literacy if we frame them as assets.

I invite you to:

• Create a one‑page, jargon‑free description of the Summer Literacy Playlist, translated where feasible, with visuals and sentence stems.
• Name home practices that “count”: talking about a TV show, telling a family story, reading captions, or listening to someone at home summarizing a text—and attach a simple question and demo prompt to those experiences.
• Offer options for documentation that don’t require printers or school English responses: a photo of a reading spot, a voice note, a short list of titles in any language, or a weekly reflection in an interactive notebook, leaning into cultural journaling.

When families see that the goal is a repeatable routine, not compliance with a long list of specific titles, participation often increases.

Keeping Reading Lives Alive

I’ve always found joy in reading. And I hope that in designing routines that honor learners’ identities, leverage their full linguistic repertoires, and build toward year‑over‑year mastery—not just survival—will allow many multilingual learners an opportunity to find that same joy.

When we center psychologically safe, culturally connected literacy routines, we give every middle school learner a realistic path to keeping their reading lives alive all summer long.

[1] Berry, A. L. (2025). The culturally competent educator: Connecting equitable practices for instruction, assessment, and grading. Corwin.

Dr. Almitra L. Berry serves as the bilingual/multilingual consultant for Perfection Learning's Connections: Literature program for middle school. Her work focuses on supporting educators who serve learners speaking languages other than English, including ethnolects such as African American English and Chicano English.