Beware the Summer Slide!

Near the beginning of my teaching career, I doubted the existence of the “Summer Slide.”  This is the idea that children lose a significant amount of the progress they made in school during the inactive downtime of summer.  Five years ago, I had an experience that opened my eyes to this phenomenon.  I had happily taught first grade for many years when a demographic shift led me to “looping” up with my class to teach second grade.  I had a great group of kids who had worked hard and made significant growth.  I was excited to see where a second year would take us!  We competed the school year in first grade with significant gains.  The children would return knowing my expectations, and we could pick up just where we left off!  Except I was wrong…

The same children returned to me in the fall, taller, tanner, and somehow different.  I had missed their sweet faces so at first I chose to overlook a fundamental change.  When the reading achievement test, PALS was administered, I nearly fell out of my chair.  The PALS test is given three times yearly at, the beginning, middle and end of the school year.  It assesses each child’s knowledge of specific phonics features, sight word recognition and reading accuracy combined with fluency.  It is an awesome benchmark for growth.  I gave the test at the end of first grade, two months earlier.  Yet I was staring at a glaring discrepancy.  The same children who had shown mastery of specific concepts no longer recalled the information.  How could this have happened?  They were only really out of school for ten weeks!

It was then that I realized that summer slide is a real thing.  All of those “year-round school” round school” advocates had a valid point.  Children lose valuable progress when they are put on an extended standby from practicing and acquiring knowledge.

 

Is There a Cure?

Summer Slide is entirely preventable.  But it requires sustained and consistent effort on the part of the parent and the child.  Obviously a tutor is a preventive measure, but not one that is accessible or affordable for everyone.  I will list some other options below.  Find a few that work for you and your specific child!

-Do review work together from all those work books your child brought home from school.

-Have a designated reading time daily.

-Read to and with your child.

-Visit your local library, make the visit a fun treat!

-Turn OFF the TV and video games and let the imaginations out to play.

-Make something together.

-Play various board games.

-Take your child to see things, places, museums, zoos etc.

-Give your child math challenges form the world around them.

-Cook something together, let you child help measure.

-Plant and grow something together, watch each day.

-Send your child to summer school, camps, or programs in their community.

-Be creative!

In conclusion, the summer does not need to be a time of rigid classroom activity, but it should not be a stopping place.  Children are naturally inquisitive.  They learn by exploring the world around them.  Help them to continue to learn and grow!

Now if you will excuse me, I hear a television that needs a time out!