Why do we have summer reading? Well according to schools we have summer reading so the students don’t “slip.”  The AP and honors kids to read harder books since they are in harder classes. There’s a whole plethora of reasons from the school board why summer reading is efficient and great. But from a student’s perspective it’s a complete waste of time.

Students have been reading everyday of our lives since we learned how to read. There’s no way the students are going to forget how to read at the grade level we are supposed to be at in two months. If expanding vocabulary is your argument for summer reading there are other ways to do that, for example movies. A study at Oxford University stated that Vineeta Gupta who is the head of child dictionaries says that watching movies or playing narrative games is having a positive effect on children’s writing as they expand their vocabulary, they grow in literacy and comprehension, which in turn leads them to becoming better readers.

AP and Honors kids are often hear “your in a higher level class so you have to read more books as well as higher level books.” Which doesn’t make sense because those students already achieved the grades to get into the class proving they’re smart enough. Most times kids who are able to handle the class drop out due to not doing a summer reading assignment. What kind of student really wants to start the school year off with an F. None, no student wants to start their school year with an F. But, all students want to actually enjoy their summer and relax during it which isn’t very easy when you have an assignment hanging over your head the entire time.

It also doesn’t help that most of the time we have to chose from a dull list of books. That makes it feel forced and the students are less likely to actually want to read. Therefore learning less since they’re just doing it to get it over with.

Also how can students try to tackle these assignments without any teachers present. Administrators and teachers expect the students to read these daunting books without any assistance. So if they hit a confusing part they have nobody to help them understand and comprehend what is actually happening.

To try to make summer reading a little more enjoyable give the students the option to do it or let them chose what book they want to read.