![]() To get started, check out this year's Scholastic Read-a-Palooza Summer Reading Challenge, a free, educational program in which kids can enter reading minutes online to unlock exclusive digital rewards and help donate books to kids in need across the country. They’ll be on board: Nearly 60 percent of children ages 6 to 17 say they love or like reading books for fun a lot, and 52 percent think it’s extremely or very important, according to the Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report. Professor Kim says kids should have access to a wide variety of books that they enjoy reading and are fully able to comprehend. The good news is that basic skills aren’t hard to maintain over the off-season! There are a number of ways to keep kids engaged in reading and math over the summer:Ĭhildren won’t gain as much from summer reading if they aren’t truly enjoying it. In fact, research cited by Kim shows that more than half of the gap in reading scores between low-income 9th graders and their middle-income peers could be attributed to differences in summer learning accumulated between first and fifth grade. “Things like decoding, letter knowledge, and word reading skills are very susceptible to decay without frequent practice, as are math facts like addition and subtraction.”Ĭhildren from low-income families are also disproportionately affected by the summer slide, in ways that can affect them years into their education. “In general, kids learn a lot more in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade than kids in middle school or high school, because learning follows a curve where it’s accelerated early in life and then plateaus,” says James Kim, Ed.D., an assistant professor of education at Harvard University. Younger children are prone to the most learning loss because they’re at a crucial stage in their development. ![]() A more recent study of children in 3rd to 5th grades also showed that students lost, on average, about 20 percent of their school-year gains in reading and 27 percent of their school-year gains in math during summer break. The study showed that kids lose significant knowledge in reading and math over summer break, which tends to have a snowball effect as they experience subsequent skill loss each year. The concept of the summer slide has been on researchers’ radar since at least 1996, when one of the first comprehensive studies on the phenomenon was published. However, all of this free time can lead to the summer slide, a regression in academic proficiency due to summer break, and experts warn it is hindering kids’ progress when they head back to school. ![]() Summer break is typically a time for kids to kick back, indulge in a little extra screen time, play outside, and embrace the kind of freedom that only comes with being young and having zero responsibilities. ![]()
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