Now that spring vacation is over and our kids are back in school it is a great time to think about how to preserve the investment that you and your child made in learning this school year and how to continue learning over the summer.
There is a large body of research evidence that shows that students lose considerable ground academically over the summer break if they don't engage in on going academic activities during that period. Fall achievement test scores are lower than the test scores from the previous spring.(White 1906; Entwistle & Alexander, 1992; Cooper et al., 2004) The typical child loses more than one month of skill or knowledge in math, reading and language arts combined. The biggest losses are in math, 2.6 months and spelling. (Cooper, Chap. 1, Cooper, Nye, Charlton, Lindsay and Greathouse, 1996) Skills and knowledge that are learned through repetition such as math, spelling, and foreign languages are at the greatest risk to be lost over periods of inactivity. If an athlete or a musician did not practice their sport or music for prolonged periods they would lose their sharpness. Our children experience the same loss of sharpness over the summer. Teachers spend four to six weeks in the fall bringing students back to the level that they were at when they left for summer vacation.
Students who are engaged in summer programs that focus on academic remediation, acceleration and enrichment showed positive results compared to those who were not engaged in these types of programs. Students in remedial programs that divide students into small groups and give individualized attention had larger positive effects than traditional class sized groups of 20-30 students. Students of all ages who were in math and reading programs experienced positive results. The greatest benefits were experienced by students in the early and secondary grades. (Summer Learning Loss: The Problem and Some Solutions, Eric Digest, www.eric.gov.)
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