Countless students complete summer reading assignments each year. This could range from reading a short story and writing about it, reading a novel and logging your thoughts, or even reading two novels and writing essays on them. Although summer reading does have its benefits, there are also drawbacks, which many believe actually outweigh the positives.
“Students should always have books with them and be reading for choice, for their own pleasure and interests, and [be] encouraged to pick out books of their own interests,”said the high school librarian who was also an English teacher from 2001-2009, Mrs.Southworth. “That could include magazines, nonfiction, [or] manuals, [such as] how to fix cars. It could be a broad scope of things, and there should never be assignments attached to it. There’s no research that’s going to show that assignments attached to students’ interest reading can give any benefits.”
Reading should be a very important part of students’ lives, and is widely encouraged. However, this is meant to be reading that they enjoy, and that covers topics that they choose, which actually interest them. It is widely believed that by assigning work with independent reading, it decreases someone’s desire to read and “kills the joy of reading”, said Mrs. Southworth.
These beliefs are also shared by many students. Sophomore Ariana Luque also agrees that having work attached to summer reading takes away from the enjoyment.
”mostly it’s negative [aspects] for me, I just don’t enjoy doing summer reading assignments,” said Luque.
“It wastes your time, it’s summer [and] you’re supposed to have fun,” said sophomore, Max Shurchin.
He believes that students should be given a break during this time off.
Similarly, according to Wiley International Literacy Association, “voluntary reading of books over the summer can enhance the reading achievement of ethnic minority students and reduce summer loss-if the books closely match their reading levels and interests.” It is important that reading is voluntary and being based on students own interests, which almost all times summer reading is not.
As it can be seen here, there are many arguments that go against students being assigned summer reading. Many believe that it decreases the likelihood of students actually enjoying what they’re reading and that instead, students should be reading what they choose and should be given a rest from school work obligations.
In terms of what summer reading entails of, Mrs. Southworth said,”[teachers have] been asking students to kind of have those responses, engaging with the text, personal responses to the text, and then also connecting literary elements or devices [and] finding those things in the book when they’re reading”.
Shurchin also said that for these assignments, students are commonly asked to “read a book, [write] post it [notes], and answer some questions”.
As it can be seen here, these assignments do vary from grade to grade and from teacher to teacher. Many people have some suggestions for how this assignment can be changed in order to better benefit the students and be less of a “burden” for those who are asked to complete them.
”I would say no work,” Mrs. Southworth said. “It should just be quantity logging, maybe something where they’re interacting with some students, like set up a platform or social media, or something where they can kind of [say], ‘I just finished this book. Who else would like to [read it]?’” She also said that summer reading assignments should be,”anything that models real world reading [and] anything that’s just going to get students sharing what they’ve read and seeing that, you know, other people enjoy reading different things too.”
In terms of a student perspective, Luque states,”I probably wouldn’t give it or make it much simpler.”
Also, Shurchin said,” I think it should be way less, but I think summer reading can actually benefit you in some ways too.”
Expanding on this, although summer reading has its drawbacks, there are also some aspects of it that can be beneficial for students. For instance, Shurchin said,”it keeps your brain fresh over summer”.
Similarly, there are some situations where even people who don’t believe in summer reading would consider it an exception. ”The only time I would say I don’t really object to some reading, per se, is when it’s part of, like an AP course and they have certain material they need to cover, and they’re going to then take that into the assignments, and it’s a higher level of rigor,” said Mrs. Southworth. “That’s different.”
Overall, there are several reasons to back up the ideas of those who believe that summer reading assignments do more harm than good. Mrs. Southworth said, instead of summer reading work being assigned,”throughout the school year and in the summer, I think the best thing that we can do, as educators, is give students an opportunity to pick and access a wide variety of materials that are interesting to them.”
