May 2008
	Try This!

Stop 'Summer Loss'

Don't let students' smarts slip.

By Alain Jehlen

Go to the beach this summer, look for school-age kids, and watch carefully. Can't you just see last year's hard-earned knowledge and skills squirting out of their heads?

This has actually been measured: According to an extensive research summary by Harris Cooper of Duke University, the average student loses at least a month's worth of learning over the summer.

"What did you do on your summer vacation?"

"I forgot!"

How much kids forget varies by subject and social class. Reading comprehension falls steeply for low-income students, but only slightly for wealthier kids. Why? Maybe because in well-off homes, there's more reading. And wealthier kids often go to educational programs that build language skills. Amazingly, most of the achievement gap between low-income and more affluent kids can be accounted for by this difference in summer loss.

Math skills go down even more sharply than reading during the lazy days of summer, and the loss is about the same for rich and poor.

How to combat this seasonal brain slump? Studies show summer school and other learning programs help, so encourage your students to sign up. But there's a lot more you can do. Here are ideas from experienced educators and the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University. They don't all agree—figuring out what's best is up to you!

Make a summer learning directory.

Put together a summer directory for parents describing the programs offered by libraries, museums, zoos, recreation departments, and so on in your area. (Include the fees!) Some communities have such directories, but if yours doesn't, it's not hard to make one if you share the work with colleagues. Jennifer Brady, a former elementary teacher now with the Johns Hopkins Center for Summer Learning, suggests organizing a summer learning fair in the spring where representatives of summer programs can talk with parents.

Take your kids to the library.

Get them used to the place before the summer break. "Librarians have been running summer programs since the 1800s," notes Brady. "There's always something going on." (If you can manage to keep your school library open, too, all the better.)

Suggest summer projects.

"Have your kids record their summer experiences through a journal, photo collections, [or] interviews with friends and family members," says Carol Foresta, a former New York secondary school teacher now at Bank Street College. Next fall in class, "there should be some sort of performance in which they show rather than tell what they learned or thought about. They can write a rap song or a play about one hot day."

How can you get them to work on this when school's out?

"I find peer pressure can help," says Foresta. "Build teams of kids who live near each other or hang out together. (They might, of course, goof off together as well, but so it goes!)"

Blog.

"Set up a blog that involves interaction and reaction from the students," says Ann Nichols, who teaches service-learning and also special education in Florence, South Carolina. "You have to get students to invest in it before school lets out. It could be a series of math or logic problems. Or reviews of summer movies, books, or television. It could be competitive and involve teams of students from different teachers or even different schools."

Suggest books.

Some teachers assign summer reading while others say that's useless (see "Keep It Fun" at right). But you can certainly send home reading ideas and suggestions for academic practice and exploration.

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket," says Brady of the Summer Learning Center. "Some kids enjoy doing worksheets," so you might send some of those home as an option.

Here are more tips you can give parents, from the Center for Summer Learning:

Prepare for fall. Find out what your child will be learning next year by talking with teachers at that grade level. Preview concepts and materials over the summer. (Brady finds kids are eager to start the year with a leg up on the competition.)

Practice math daily. Measure items around the house. Track daily temperatures. Add and subtract at the store. Cooking is a chance to learn fractions. Everyday experiences can offer fun opportunities for kids to learn.

Get out and play. Limit TV and video game time, just as you do during the school year. Physical activity contributes to healthy development.

Do good deeds. Students learn better and "act out" less when they engage in community service.

Click here to find more tips on curbing summer loss and a place to share your own ideas, as well as two summer learning tipsheets for parents that you can print out or adapt for your situation.