David Elzey posted the following to The Excelsior Files in 2007, as part of a five-part series about Summer Reading. I thought it would be good to quote it here, since the Required Reading vs No Required Reading debate is a never-ending one:
“…the summer reading of my youth, always self-directed and rarely encouraged by my mother, has been replaced with a formalized list of titles handed out at the end of the school year for elementary school kids to stress over as they tussle with parents over having their ‘fun’ summer taken away from them.”
Monica Edinger, from Educating Alice, has recently pointed readers to a parody she wrote on the topic a few years ago. To Require or Not to Require: That’s the Question is sure to make you laugh, as well as think about the issue.
This is not a debate about whether children should read during the Summer or not, but whether their reading should be chosen for them and required. What do you think?
