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St. Mary School 

Preschool-Eighth Grade

 Keep Your Kids from the Summer Slide

By Charlotte Koch

Something is waiting for many students this summer, and many parents aren’t aware that it’s out there.  It’s called the summer slide-which is what describes what happens when young minds sit idle for the summer months.

As summer break approaches, parents and their children are thinking about their family vacation, trips to the pool, and how to keep their children engaged in activities at home while juggling everyone’s schedules.  What parents might not be thinking about is how much educational ground their children could lose during the three month summer break, especially when it comes to reading.    There is no better time than summer for parents to help their children bridge the gap in learning between the end of one school year to the next.  One of the best ways to bridge that gap is to have children read throughout the year, which is essential to creating lifelong readers, and reading is the doorway to all other learning.

Educational experts agree that students who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who do not, will often slide backward.  A report from John Hopkins Center for Summer Learning: reports, “A conservative estimate of lost instructional time is approximately two months or roughly 22% of the school year…”  This equates to teachers having to spend at least a month in the fall re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer.  That is a month that teachers could have spent teaching new skills and information. 

Educational experts agree that students who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who do not often experience learning losses.  The following reading tips will help entice your children to read this summer:

• Visit the library:  If your child doesn’t have a library card, summer is a great time to sign up.  Libraries have a great variety of books to borrow and the Brown County Public Library has a Summer Reading Program for students entering Kindergarten-Grade 7.
• Lead by Example:  Read the newspaper, a magazine at the doctor’s office, or a paperback at the pool.  If kids see adults around them reading often, they will understand that reading can be a fun and important part of their summer.
• Help kids find time to read:  Summer camp, baseball games, videos, swimming, and dance lessons are all fun things that kids like to do during the summer.  However, by the end of the day, children may be too tired to pick up a book.  When planning summer activities with your children, remember to leave some time in their schedules for reading. 
• Relax the rules for summer:  During the school year, children have busy schedules and have reading that is required for their classes.  Summer is a time when children can read what, when, and how they please.  Don’t set any requirements for how much or when they should read.  Rather, make sure they pick up books for fun and help them find ways to choose to read on their own.

The summer slide affects millions of children each year, but it doesn’t have to.  To prevent your child from losing ground to the summer slide engage your child in some of the reading activities listed above.  They will be ready to start to learn again in the fall; maybe even a bit ahead of where they were at the end of the school year.  Help your child experience success!  Read!  Read!  Read!