Summer Reading Benefits

“It was a pleasure to burn,” (Bradbury 1). It was at that moment did Dylan realize that he was about to read a long and confusing novel. He was even going to take a test on the book when September arrives. Summer reading/homework is designed to help students keep their knowledge over the long, non-educative hours of summer. Teachers think that making children read in the summer helps them. In fact, the opposite happens. Not only does the work stress and bore kids to death, it decreases the want to learn, not to mention taking time away from other tasks. Thus, summer homework should not be given because it does not help students as much as they think.

Students should not get reading assignments over the summer because the books do not hold

the reader’s attention. Furthermore, it can put pressure on the students owing to the fact that they just had nine long and arduous months of school. Just when they thought they had a hiatus, extra work comes piling in, “The problem was that he hated the books and kept procrastinating, and the stress on the child and on the entire family became unbearable,” (Pope 6). The author is trying to say that not only do children go through the torture of reading high level vocabulary, but they also have to do extra work, making both the parents and students anxious. Queenan, the author of Summer Bummer, also agrees with this when he says, “If my teachers had an ounce of human decency in them, they might have assigned us ‘Macbeth’ or Caesar’s ‘Gallic Wars,’ figuring that the merry carnage would at least hold the boys’ interest for a while”(Queenan 1). Both authors agree that the books assigned for summer reading are not fun for students to read and understand and that students would be more likely to read books appealing to them. On the whole summer reading should not be given because the books are simply boring.

In today's society, most kids do not care about learning, they just want the grade. Parents don't stress the fact that what the students learn in school will be used later in life. They tell them if they receive an A, nothing else matters. Summer reading was made to review material students learned over the school year so that they will retain the information during the course of the summer. But some students were not reading the assigned books, so teachers had to give students extra work to prove that they read the book, “...children and youth may complete assignments just to check them off the list, not really engaging with the ideas or learning new critical skills or knowledge”(Moje, 10). There is no point of summer reading if kids are going to forget what they learned right after they review it in school. Students might learn something in a book, but they will not apply it in real life,” I am simply recording my amazement that in an age when urban high schools use weapons detectors to check for handguns, educators still make kids read ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ “(Queenan 1). The author is saying that schools teach one thing, but they do another. Overall, summer reading is not worthwhile for kids because in this society, the grade is the only thing that matters.

Finally, summer reading takes time away to do other activities, such as playing outside or practicing an instrument.

The summertime is when kids play outside and do whatever they want. Some kids even go to day care or their friends’ house to do something different, “Many children go to summer camps where they learn many of important skills not covered in school” (Cooper 3). Doing work in the summer that does not interest them will make kids despise summer. It also will not let the kids do want they want to do in peace, because they will worry about the huge assignment they still have to finish, “…the backbreaking obligation to read Charles Dickens blighted June, ravaged July obliterated August” (Queenan,1). Some might argue that the long summer will make the children forget what they learned, but if the students cannot relearn what they already knew in a month or less, that means that they are not being taught correctly. In general, summer reading makes a students' summer into more school time, which is not helpful to them.

Summer reading should not be assigned because it does not do what it was intended to do. All summer reading does is bore children, make them worry about the grade more than learning the material itself, which takes away time from other activities. Both articles agree that in order for a student to succeed, they need breaks, not more work. But as of now, parents want their child to get the hundred on a test or quiz and beat everyone else. If this continues,

society will become being better than everyone else, not improving yourself and everyone around you.