What Happens When Summer Work Is Not Thought Out: Tips For Parents From A Teacher
Last Monday, I was wiping ketchup off my patio table after a backyard burger dinner when 9-year-old Milo slunk over, dragging a crumpled 2-inch thick packet emblazoned with “Mandatory Incoming 3rd Grade Summer Work.” A cherry popsicle dripped down his wrist, and he kept glancing over his shoulder at his mom, who was inside helping me unload groceries. “I can’t do this,” he mumbled, flipping to the first page and shoving it at me. The first problem was 342 x 16. Milo just finished 2nd grade at his old public school, and he’d never even learned two-digit multiplication, let alone three-digit. The back listed three required chapter books, all over 300 pages, all written for mid-3rd grade readers. Milo has dyslexia, a diagnosis his new private school never asked for when he enrolled.
When his mom came out, she sighed and told me she’d gotten the packet in a mass email in mid-May, with no additional context, no notes about differentiation, and a hard deadline of the first day of school. The email said any student who didn’t finish the full packet would have to complete it during recess for the first month of school. She’s a single nurse working 12-hour shifts three-quarters of the summer to save up for tuition, so she’d been making Milo do two pages every night after dinner before she went to bed for her next shift. In two weeks, he’d hidden the packet twice, lied about finishing pages, and had started saying he didn’t want to go to the new school at all.
That’s when I realized this wasn’t just one bad packet. In the 12 years I’ve taught 4th grade, I get at least five messages a June from parents panicking about exactly this: generic, one-size-fits-all summer work that no one sat down to actually plan for real kids. Last week alone, a parent of one of my former students texted me about an incoming 7th grade assignment that required a $40 online subscription the school never mentioned. Another told me her kid’s high school summer reading list was posted only on a printable PDF, and they’re traveling full-time in an RV all summer with no access to a printer. None of these assignments had any flexibility built in, and all of them were just copied from the year before without anyone checking if they made sense for this year’s group of kids.
The worst part is, most of this work is supposed to prevent summer learning loss. But all it actually does is burn kids out before the first bell even rings. I’ve seen kids who love reading go the whole summer without touching a book because they were forced to read books they couldn’t understand for a grade. I’ve seen parents fight with their kids every night for two months over a handful of meaningless worksheet pages, turning summer into a second school year no one asked for.
After Milo left that night, we sat down with the packet and went through it page by page, and I walked his mom through what I tell all my parents when they end up with this kind of unplanned work. First, cross out anything that doesn’t fit your kid right now. For Milo, that meant every single three-digit multiplication problem, any writing prompt that required him to write a full five-sentence paragraph when he’s still working on three, and two of the three big chapter books. We replaced that with what he actually needed: 10 minutes of one-digit multiplication fact practice a day to reinforce what he learned last year, and one short biography of Sue the T-Rex (his current obsession) from the list that was only 80 pages, plus counting the 10 minutes of graphic novels he already reads every day before bed as extra reading practice. That’s way more useful than forcing him to do work he can’t do, which just teaches him he’s bad at math before he even starts.
Second, throw out the “every day” rule if it doesn’t work for your family. The packet said two pages every single day, no exceptions. We adjusted that to 10 minutes of work, four days a week. If we’re going to the pool, or having family over, or the kid just had a bad day, we skip it. That’s low-stakes enough for a working parent to manage, and it doesn’t take over the whole summer. I’ve never had a teacher turn down that kind of adjustment if you just write a short note at the front of the packet explaining what you did. Nine times out of ten, the teacher who’s collecting the packet didn’t write it anyway—they just have to check it off, and they don’t care if you adjusted it to fit your kid.
Third, if the assignment requires something you don’t have—a paid subscription, a printer, a car to get to a museum for a field trip—email the front office and ask for an accommodation. Most of the time, the people who put the assignment together didn’t stop to think that not every family has that stuff, and they’ll be happy to adjust it for you. You don’t have to overexplain or apologize, just say what you need and ask for help.
A month later, Milo’s finished half the adjusted work, he finished his dinosaur biography last week, and he drew a big picture of the T-Rex skeleton to add to the end of his packet. He still complains sometimes about having to do work in the summer, and some weeks we only get two days done instead of four. His mom still worries sometimes that the new school will be upset we didn’t do every single page. I tell her it’s okay. If they’re that unreasonable about a summer packet before school even starts, that’s good to know early.
At the end of the day, summer is supposed to be a break. Kids learn more from climbing trees, helping cook dinner, and hanging out with their friends than they do from a hundred unplanned worksheet pages that don’t fit their skills. No one benefits from a bunch of work that no one bothered to plan for your kid. It’s okay to take it apart and make it work for you.
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