Summer is cherished by students across the globe as a time to relax, spend time with family and friends, and travel to new destinations. However, there is an emerging concern over the concept of summer learning loss, or “the summer slide,” the idea that learned academic skills and knowledge are lost during the summer break months. What is this emerging concept, and how can students prevent loss of knowledge retained during the school year?
Summer Learning Loss
Summer learning loss has become a prominent topic of academic research in the last six years. Regardless of income, race and region, students tend to find themselves with lower levels of mastery of educational content at the start of the new school year in comparison to the end of the previous one. To measure this phenomenon, scientists have devised diagnostic tests that measure retained knowledge on two academic subjects: math and English.
On average, test scores decreased for all students enrolled in elementary school and beyond. The total decline over the summer is approximately equal to one month’s learning during the school year. Interestingly, math scores almost always decreased by more than English scores. However, although the general trend holds true, there is significant disparity between different students. It has been discovered that learning rates vary significantly more over the summer than over the school year, with students in low-income school districts tending to learn less.
Summer Programming
After noticing this trend, policymakers and educators created structured learning curricula for the summer to facilitate student learning in environments similar to the school year. By 2022, an estimated 90% of school districts in the United States offered summer programs with an academic focus. Most of these programs ran for the minimum duration correlated with meaningful learning—five continuous weeks with three hours of instruction a day.
Despite the creation of useful programs, there is still difficulty increasing attendance at these summer programs. On average, only 13% of district students attended their respective summer programs. Indeed, it is difficult asking students to give up their well-earned summer for more coursework, so there are still challenges in increasing the impact of these programs.
Learning at Home
Another effective method to combat summer learning loss is through programs like READS for Summer Learning. READS is designed to help lower-income elementary school students keep up with reading habits, draw meaningful takeaways and stay on track with learning. The program mails each student eight books on topics of their interest, each accompanied with a pre-reading activity and post-reading comprehension quiz. Once completed, the work is mailed back to the organizers so that parents can be updated on their children’s progress.
READS has been proven to be successful through scientific trials, showing how simple, at-home learning programs can also resolve the issue and retain knowledge in students. More innovative ideas utilizing technology, like Mobi Math Tiles games or Sight Word Learning Mats, are especially helpful for engaging young children in smart play. With more attention directed at the summer learning loss issue and more solutions to address it, there is promising hope to lower the severity of this phenomenon in the future.
