Many students anticipate summer break, but parents aim to prevent learning loss known as the “summer slide.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With just a few weeks of school remaining, many students are already looking forward to summer break. Meanwhile, parents may be thinking about ways to keep their children engaged in learning to prevent what educators call the “summer slide.”
Summer slide refers to the learning loss or regression that occurs when students are out of school during summer months. According to a study by the Northwest Evaluation Association, which creates educational assessments, students in third to fifth grades lose approximately 20% of their reading skills and 27% of their math knowledge over the summer.
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Melissa Balknight, deputy superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), recommends parents take a practical approach to combat this learning loss.
“Have them read the recipe with you to make sure that you’re following it correctly, incorporate math activities with the fractions in the recipe,” Balknight said. “Allow them to build a budget this summer — that’s good for small children but also great for high school students as we do financial literacy in high school.”
Other suggestions include having children serve as the historian or photographer for summer vacations, creating schedules for daily or weekly activities, and checking out books from the local library.
For families seeking more structured learning opportunities, CMS provides access to the i-Ready Family Center through the district’s website, which allows teachers to track students’ progress.
“They can certainly work 30 minutes twice a week at home on i-Ready, and that would continue to engage them and move them forward,” Balknight explained. “Then we could look at that data even as they come back to school in the fall, which would be helpful.”
Experts note that younger children are most susceptible to summer slide, with those from low-income families being disproportionately affected.
Balknight emphasized that the most important factor is finding what works best for each individual child.
“Some type of activity so they don’t come back to school in August having to remember, ‘How do I do this?’ or ‘Let me get started,'” she said. “We just want to make sure that parents find a good sweet spot for their specific student and how they can stay engaged in the summer.”
The key to preventing summer learning loss, according to Balknight, is to incorporate education into activities children enjoy — whether reading about their favorite singer, actor, or sports figure, or helping with recipes for math practice.
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