Photo by Aye Akara Aung
A majority of students aren’t fans of summer assignments because they consider summer to be a time to have fun–a time to relax and take a break from assignments, exams, and other boring school stuff. But at many schools, including Willow, students are given homework to do over the summer, whether it’s reading a book or looking into materials they will be studying the following year.
So, what is the purpose of these assignments?
“A book to read develops discerning reading skills, and processing the book’s events keeps one’s brain in gear. It’s probably most beneficial for students who wouldn’t pick up a book otherwise,” said Dr. Rizzuto, Willow English teacher.
Doing summer assignments can help students get ready for the academic year to come in terms of keeping their brains sharp over the 10 weeks of break. Summer slide is a well-known phenomenon whereby students lose skills and knowledge gained during the previous school year in countries that have lengthy breaks at the end of a school year, such as the U.S. and Canada. According to Wikipedia, “In 2017, one review of the research in the U.S.A. concluded that on average, students lost one month of learning over the summer months… Higher grade levels experienced more loss, and the income-learning gap was especially significant because middle-class students tended to show an improvement in reading skills during the summer, while lower-income students tended to experience a loss in reading skills.”
Ouch! One month of learning loss per summer?
Summer assignments can help students avoid summer slide and get good grades at the start of the new year so they can start their year off strongly. It can also help them understand the materials beforehand so they won’t be confused at the beginning of class. Something like a book to annotate over the summer can be helpful for keeping up reading students’ skills in students who might not pick up a book on their own over the summer.
Parents may have a different attitude than students. “I was thrilled my incoming 5th grader had math work to do over the summer,” Ms. Crockett said. “Math is the subject that she needs to work on most, and math facts are so quickly forgotten. We have her do some work over the summer, but a book you buy on Amazon that says fifth grade math may not be exactly what Willow students are doing in 5th grade. It was great to have something specifically assigned for the new year.”
Many students still find it unnecessary and see it as a chore. A sophomore who wishes to be anonymous describes summer work as “pretty useless and badly implemented.” She is one of many students who have a distaste for summer work, and even some teachers agree that it is unnecessary.
“I don’t necessarily believe in summer work because I don’t believe that the way school vacations are structured is good for students,” said English II teacher and AP coordinator Carol Eshleman.
The argument could be made that summer assignments don’t help students since “the whole idea of it is to maintain your skills for the next school year, but people either complete it super fast and early so by the time school starts they’re still rusty and out of practice, or they do it right before school,” commented another sophomore who wishes to remain anonymous.
Some students can see the reasoning behind it, while also seeing it as badly implemented. “I think that summer work is important, but I don’t think it should be graded on accuracy, or anything like that. Summer work should be simple so students don’t forget what they’ve learned in the school year,” said a sophomore who wishes to be anonymous.
On average, summer work is supposed to take a few hours or more, depending on the classes. For English courses usually, students are assigned a book to read over the summer, taking about “3-4 hours, or it can take 10-12 hours, depending on whether they used an audiobook and which book they chose,” said Rizzuto.
But some students say it usually takes longer for them to complete it. How long?
“20-35 hours probably,” stated a sophomore who wanted to remain anonymous.
Summer assignments have their ups and downs. In theory, it should help sharpen students’ skills and give them a grade boost at the start of the year, but many of them felt like it was a burden from their well-deserved vacation time. The best option that seems fair for all concerned parties is reading a book or two over the summer that the student chooses. As stated by two anonymous sophomores, “Summer assignments should be just a few books we choose to read.”
