The 'Summer Slide' - It's Not What You Think

Children and families are looking beyond the ending of the CRCT to the summer; a time for relaxation, fun and games, sleeping in and saying goodbye to the morning routine of the dreaded “It’s time to wake up and get ready for school.”  Well…not so fast!

The so-called “Summer Slide” is on the way!

What sounds like an amusement park ride, is actually the term penned by John’s Hopkins University researchers Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle and Linda Olson in 2007 which tracked 790 students over a 22 year period. Their findings have fueled passions as well as debate of the conflict between continued academic exposure vs. the long term American trend of summer vacation. The traditional 9-month school calendar was established when 85 percent of Americans, including children, worked in agriculture and when air conditioning systems did not exist in schools.   Fast forward to 2013 and only 3 percent of Americans work in agriculture.

Research spanning 100 years has proven children typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer break than they do in the spring.  According to the Rand Corporation, the average student loses approximately a month of reading knowledge by the time school resumes. What is more compelling is the average student drops an average of almost 2.6 months behind in math skills, based on the research from the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University.  

At the end of every school year, teachers, with good intentions, send home summer math packets hoping students will complete the skills over the summer, yet often these packets end up in the bottom of a book bag or tossed into the recycling container. Reading is more consistent in a child’s environment and parents, schools and libraries encourage summer reading programs, yet math is another story.

Math is something which requires continued practice and reinforcement of skills and strategies in order to maintain math knowledge. The learning loss is cumulative summer after summer and can have profound negative impacts on academic success K – 12 and post-secondary opportunities.

Teachers must spend valuable time re-teaching skills to students at the beginning of every new school year. Consider this: the financial impact for re-teaching is astronomical; the average cost is $1,500 per child per school year and more than $18,000 total for grades K-12. At a time when school systems continue to lose funding, and the summer slide sets kids back even further, it is apparent, meeting the academic needs of students often requires additional resources beyond the academic school year.

Summer learning & enrichment programs help students to remain current on their academic skills as well as provide an opportunity to preview upcoming curriculum, which can help build confidence and success in the up-coming school year. When students continue learning through the summer months, even one or two sessions a week or taking classes in technology which stimulate problem solving in reading and math, it keeps them on the path of learning so the only slide they will experience during the summer months is at the pool or playground.  

Denise Detamore is the Founding Director of Advantage Learning Coopertive and Kids 4 Coding Center dedicated to Technology, Design and Academic Enrichment.  

http://kids4coding.com/

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