How to avoid slipping down the “summer slide”
For the average student, summer is associated with all sorts of slides – slides at the playground, water slides – but then there’s the one slide that concerns educators: the “summer slide.” Summer slide, which is also known as summer learning loss, is the tendency for students to forget a lot of what they learned during the school year.
In Québec, the school year is 10 months long and consists of 180 days of academic instruction[1]. The summer is approximately 8 to 9 weeks long during which students are not obliged to receive formal education. Can this lengthy break in formal education affect students’ learning? The answer is yes. Educational researchers have studied the concept of summer slide for over a century, and have found that on average, students lose about one month’s worth of learning over the summer and the extent of the loss is larger for math than for reading[2]. Given the data, some researchers have proposed making drastic changes to the school calendar such as shortening summer break. At Healthy Learning MTL, we believe that summer break is an important time for children to accumulate learning experiences that extend beyond what’s included in the standard school curriculum. With these tips for families, we believe students can slow down summer learning loss and still enjoy their summer!
Read, read, read!
Take advantage of your local library. Explore books that capture your child’s interest and are adequately challenging to stimulate their learning. You can also read the same book as your child and engage in thoughtful conversations about its content.
Make math practice relevant and fun!
Practicing math doesn’t have to just be about completing worksheets. Math can be highlighted in everyday activities such as having your child help calculate your change at the store or a tip on a meal. You can also read math stories together through apps such as Bedtime Math which was found to significantly increase math achievement scores in first-graders over the course of the school year[3]. For older students, a more advanced app called DragonBox Algebra 12+ is also available.
Take “educational” family trips to the museum, nature parks!
Learning doesn’t just take place in the classroom. Many local museums offer hands on learning activities for children. Take trips to nature parks; engage in thoughtful conversations with your children about what they learned. Click here for a directory of educational sites in Montreal.
[1] Publications Québec. (2018). Basic school regulation for preschool, elementary and secondary education.
Retrieved from http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/showdoc/cr/I-13.3,%20r.%208
[2] Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., & Greathouse, S. (1996). The effects of summer vacation on
achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of educational research, 66(3), 227-268.
[3] Berkowitz, T., Schaeffer, M. W., Maloney, E. A., Peterson, L., Gregor, C., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L.
(2015). Math at home adds up to achievement in school. Science, 350(6257), 196-198.
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