Keep Your Kids Sharp and Learning All Summer Long
Summer learning loss has been a topic of conversation in education for many years. In the typical school calendar, students are off for summer vacation for 8-9 weeks. During this time, many students experience learning loss.
Brookings.edu says that this loss is generally higher in math than in reading and affects grades 3-11 more than the lower grades. With the 2019-2020 school year ending abruptly due to the pandemic and then many schools missing the start of the 2020-2021 school year as well, it is safe to say that students cannot afford another learning loss over the summer.
With that being said, there are some easy ways to help make sure your child stays sharp and learning all summer long and avoids summer learning loss.
1. Keep your child reading over the summer any way you can.
Whether it is books, magazines, recipes, or even listening to audio books, making sure your child continues to read is especially important. Many libraries, and some schools, have summer reading programs with incentives.
2. Utilize the resources in your community over the summer to encourage and promote learning.
Along with the reading programs, libraries often have educational events over the summer. Museums, parks, and universities are also great places that often have learning opportunities.
3. Play educational games with your child
Playing games are a great way to work on children’s math skills without them even noticing! Many card games and board games require students to use mental math to play. Other games like chess and checkers are also great to continue working on critical thinking skills.
4. Watch educational movies with your child
Movies can be another sneaky way to help children continue to learn while on their summer break. There are many amazing movies that teach a lot about history and science. Watching these movies together as a family and talking nonfictional pieces is a great way to learn new facts. Movies can also be used to talk about plot and theme.
5. Try journal writing or scrapbooking
There are a few ways to get your child to continue to work on their writing over the summer. One way is to encourage them to keep a diary or journal and to describe their day or events that happen throughout the summer. Creating a scrapbook and writing about memories from different vacations and activities will also encourage writing.
6. Get a tutor for your child
Working with a tutor a few times a week over the summer or even weekly is a simple way to ensure your child does not experience a learning loss. Tutors can review skills from the previous year as well as prep your child with new skills for the next school year.
Summer is a time for relaxing and celebrating the hard school year that was just completed. But with these simple activities, you can also make sure that summer is still a time of learning!
