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 8-9 weeks of summer vacation, during which many students experience learning loss.
Brookings.edu says this loss is generally higher in math than reading, affecting grades 3-11 more than the lower grades. With all that said, it is safe to say that students cannot afford another learning loss over the summer.
However, there are some easy ways to help ensure your child stays sharp and learning all summer long and avoids summer learning loss.
1. Keep your child reading over the summer in any way you can.
Whether it is books, magazines, recipes, or even listening to audiobooks, 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.
Libraries often have educational events over the summer in addition to their reading programs. Museums, parks, and universities are also great places that often offer learning opportunities.
3. Play educational games with your child.
Playing games is a great way to work on children’s math skills without them even noticing! Many card and board games require students to use mental math to play. Other games like chess and checkers are also great ways to continue developing critical thinking skills.
4. Watch educational movies with your child.
Movies can be another sneaky way to help children continue learning during their summer break. Many amazing movies teach a lot about history and science. Watching these movies together as a family and discussing nonfiction pieces is a great way to learn new facts. Movies can also be used to discuss 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 describe their day or events 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 and prepare 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 ensure that summer is still a learning time!
