Summer Learning Loss: Tips to Prevent
reviewed by Jo-ann Caballes
Updated on June 30, 2024
Summer is too good to study. But if you do nothing for months, the learning loss over summer becomes your real problem, causing unnecessary suffering and mood swings back at school.
In this post, we share tips on how to combat the learning loss. Our recommendations are based on science on summer learning loss and will help you stop it gently yet effectively to keep enjoying summer days without knowledge gaps.
What is summer learning loss?
Summer learning loss is the term used to describe the gaps in academic knowledge and skills right after the summer break at school. It’s a typical problem for more than two-thirds of math students, with the growth from 70% in elementary school to 84% in fifth grade.
Is summer learning loss real?
What is known about summer learning loss is that it may happen to some students during the summer months. In practice though, anyone struggling to remember skills gained after a long pause can agree that learning gaps are a problem.
So yes, summer learning loss is surely real.
How to prevent summer learning loss?
The first step to stop summer learning loss is to include some learning elements in your summer activity plan. That’s the key recommendation of Neeru Khosla, the creator of the educational platform CK-12.
“Connecting learning to summer activities enriches learning.”
If you want to combat summer learning loss, start by reviewing the typical summer activities for your children. After that, consider adding some exercises to practice skills and knowledge kids have already gained at school. The key here is to balance between systematic learning and having fun — because it’s summertime!
For example, you can count the number of steps you take on a walk and practice multiplication and division together. If your kid is a player, another great idea is to find a cool online math game.
Prevent summer learning loss with Brighterly
If you want to prevent summer learning loss systematically, feel free to ask Brighterly tutors for help. We offer personalized math learning sessions for students from 1st to 12th grade. Our tutors know the nuances of summer learning and are trained to keep classes interactive and fun in any season.
Don’t hesitate to request our free demo lesson to see how our learning loss prevention works in practice.
How do you combat summer learning loss in school-age children?
School-age children tend to find learning boring, so you need a special approach to stem summer learning loss among them.
5 key recommendations to prevent the summer learning gap from Neeru Kholsa (Creator of CK-12)
“With the right tools and support, parents can prevent the summer learning gap.”
2. Incorporate real-world learning to turn ordinary chores into teaching opportunities.
3. Engage in interactive learning with free resources and interactive simulations.
4. Promote reading with library summer reading programs.
5. Stay involved by having regular conversations and encouraging your children
Overall, summer learning loss during elementary school is a common problem, so it’s a great idea to coordinate efforts with other parents and seek help from libraries and online tutors. Also, the great strategy is to tailor the learning activities to the child’s interests, gently turning their favorite things into subjects to learn in a summer class.
Here are some nice ideas to prevent summer loss your school-age children may like:
- Roll into a library-curated challenge or book club
- Play math-based online games or offline quests
- Engage in hands-on STEM activities
- Join an educational trip
- Replace excessive screen time with a summer learning routine.
5 ways to reduce the summer learning loss
There are several ways for summer learning loss prevention, ranging from creating inspiring challenges to finding the learning element in routine activities. Here, we’ve picked 5 top ways that help to cope with the summer learning gap.
1. Set a reading goal
Reading books is the best way to prevent summer reading loss. With the clear objective set and fun competition involved, you will ensure your child won’t lose reading skills during summer break.
If your kid doesn’t like reading, try to make this habit more attractive and even inevitable to follow. Set an encouraging environment to make reading cool and consistent. Also, think of the perfect moment in your summer schedule to open a book together.
“Make reading enjoyable and accessible.”
Benefits of summer reading
Reading in summer and letting kids choose the books they want to read foster a love of books. The key from the parents’ side here is to set a specific and measurable objective for this. Reading goals help to practice reading skills consistently, and that’s why they are the best way to track progress.
For your assistance, many libraries and community organizations create book clubs, summer reading programs, reading competitions, and other challenges that make reading both measurable and fun. If you have no time to control the child’s reading progress, you can participate in this program instead.
2. Go to a summer camp
Summer camps are a great way to cope with the issue of summer learning loss. These structured and interactive activities help kids maintain their academic knowledge during summer and connect with peers simultaneously.
The academic element of summer camps is usually in their program design. For example, a math-oriented summer camp will include working under summer math programs, which means solving math problems in teams and other hands-on experiences that require math knowledge.
Summer camps are like summer schools but their activities feel like after-school enrichment activities, not like traditional classes.
Benefits of attending summer camps
In summer camps, kids gain an opportunity to keep practicing academic knowledge and social skills simultaneously, which can cause their love of learning.
By participating in various summer camp activities, children discover new passions and interests that were hard to find and try back home. By being fun, these interests spark excitement and curiosity. Steadily, kids start to associate these feelings with learning something new, making this experience fun and rewarding.
Along with new interests, summer camps help kids practice new skills, including critical thinking, creativity, and social skills. New passions call for approaching things from a new perspective, developing problem-solving skills, and cooperating with peers. These interactions help build confidence and independence and maintain them back at school.
3. Learn from creativity
The easiest way to help students at risk of summer loss is to show learning potential in their current passions. While summer camps offer a wide range of things to try, this approach helps to learn as much as possible from the chosen thing.
Any creative activity teaches a child to think outside the box to overcome complex challenges, and that’s an essential skill at school. By focusing on developing this during summer creativity sessions, you help them use their passions as a tool for personal growth.
Benefits of learning from creative activities
A creative passion is a medium for self-expression, so the skills kids have learned at school can become a part of them. Try to guide their next creative steps by recalling facts learned from school. This way, you’ll help them bridge academic knowledge with real-life problems they encounter in creative pursuit.
While viewing creative passions as tools to prevent summer loss, you’ll need cooperation from their tutors. And if your child’s passion is an academic subject like math, hiring an online tutor who knows how to connect creative fun with systematic learning is a must.
4. Travel to educate
Discoveries can teach your kids something new and, thus, assist in stemming summer learning loss. To make your next vacation an educational journey, add to your visiting plan art galleries, museums, or free time to learn something new from nature.
Benefits of educational tours
Any educational tour, ranging from nature walks to guided museum tours, requires children to practice their observation skills. These skills are handy in class, helping them concentrate, be attentive to details, and think analytically.
Furthermore, you can adjust your educational trips to the skill you want to practice during the summer. For example, you can visit a famous mathematician’s house to remind kids about math or go to a natural history museum if your interest is geology.
Either way, try to find something interesting and interactive enough to spark their curiosity. The more fun an experience is, the less it feels like studying and the higher chance your kids will want to go on another educational tour.
5. Find an online tutor
You can hire an online tutor to worry about summer learning loss. This way, it will be their task to make studying interesting and repetitive in your child’s summer schedule.
Benefits of working with an online tutor
Professional online tutors are interested in your child’s progress, so their learning programs are highly personalized and focused on the specific subject they need to learn. If needed, they may incorporate some games, quests, and reading challenges discussed in other ways to prevent summer learning loss.
Working with an online tutor also means consistent learning and skill-building. In other words, your child can catch up and build new skills during summer, making their future school work easier. Through engaging and interactive lessons with immediate feedback and support, your kids will study stress-free and at their own pace to develop a love of learning.
All in all, investing in an online tutor during the summer has several long-term benefits for your child’s academic success back at school. And it’s still fun!
Conclusion
What do we know about summer learning loss? First, it’s real. Second, you can prevent it. And finally, summer learning loss is much more serious for those who don’t believe it’s real and do nothing to stop it.
Generally, a lack of planning is the main problem that causes students to experience summer loss. That’s why the first step is to review your child’s summer schedule and find free time and creative activities to learn from.
No matter which exact activities you choose, remember that consistency and joy are the keys to success. The more fun kids can have while learning during summer, the better their school results will be.
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