School’s out, summer is in, but wait, there’s just one small thing, don’t forget to do your summer reading. Just when you thought there was a certain break for us they throw us another curve ball. And for what? A grade they may not count, perhaps two minor grades, extra credit maybe? No. For most of us dedicated students we deserve an honest true break. Where there are no worries and most importantly no reading and homework in the same sentence.
Schools fear that with two months off, students will forget all that they have learned. According to the National Summer Learning Association “Summer learning loss, the phenomenon where young people lose academic skills over the summer, is one of the most significant causes of the achievement gap between lower and higher income youth and one of the strongest contributors to the high school dropout rate.” Although this may be true, it would be more beneficial to do summer reading in the lower grades to continue practicing comprehension. But by high school, majority have mastered comprehension and know how to read. High school students also have jobs which take away most of their free time in the summer, whereas younger grades don’t have much to do all day.
Summer reading is a time wasting assignment for to keep students intact for the new upcoming year for school. No thank you. If I wanted to keep in touch with school I would’ve taken summer classes by choice. That’s right, by choice, something that us students lack in the school, choice. I get it, school is important, school is necessary, but for goodness sake, let me have my summer of peace and tranquility. Let me forget what’s two plus two and the meaning of the word flabbergasting. I will remember it eventually when I get back to school. When I get back to school I’ll spend all my time and effort into my grades and my own knowledge. But when it comes to summer, well, there is no need to think. It’s to have fun because it won’t last. Summer reading doesn’t really teach us anything other than to not like reading since we are forced to do it. It has no exact purpose and it is nowhere near benefiting because guess what, I have the rest of the marking period to bump my grade up. I can guarantee no one has ever failed an English class without doing the summer reading. I can guarantee half the kids don’t even read because there’s the little thing called spark notes that gives you all that you need. I can guarantee some kid is paying his friend to write his paper because there is no point of wasting your precious time reading and writing. So what if we waste it sleeping all day. So what if we do nothing but watch Netflix and eat junk food. We weren’t able to do that when we had school, so we are doing it now. It’s our choice to be lazy because it is called summer break for a reason. I can guarantee the world is better off without summer reading.
Some of us work hard all school year long and truly deserve a mental break. Summer reading is not a hard assignment, just an assignment most students prefer not to be forced to do.
