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 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,