Summer Learning Loss
For many families, the Summer season represents a time to take a break from school to enjoy the weather, go on vacation, and enjoy time together. While these are all great things, they can often come at the expense of students’ academics. Since at least the 1990s, studies have shown that students can experience significant learning loss over the Summer break. This is especially true if they neglect continued learning.
A more recent study has quantified this loss as 1-2 months of learning in reading and 1-3 months of learning in mathematics. Additionally, an important factor in predicting how much learning loss a student would experience is how much they learned during the preceding school year. That is, students that learned the most during the year tended to forget the most over the Summer.
Establishing a Summer Routine
There are many ways to mitigate this loss, but one successful option is to maintain a structured program of practice throughout the Summer vacation. This practice does not need to be as intensive as a normal school day (6-8 hours), but it should be part of a daily routine. Maintaining a steady pattern of daily practice can help to mitigate or even eliminate any learning loss over the Summer. In some cases, it can even help students progress beyond where they finished in the Spring.
The challenge for many parents is often the real-world logistics of how to administer and manage their child’s academics over the Summer. As many schools close their doors over the holidays, parents must come up with their own solutions. Combining this with the regular workday, extracurriculars (i.e. sports, music, art, etc.), and vacations, this can be a daunting task. A good solution to this problem can be to obtain the services of a tutor.
Summer Tutoring
While tutoring can come in many shapes and forms, 1-on-1 online tutoring is specially suited to the unpredictable nature of the Summer break. Students can continue their sessions even when on vacation, so long as they have internet access. The tutor can provide the personalized guidance and structure needed to avoid learning loss. For students who had a tutor throughout the school year to help catch up, this is especially important. This is because these students are most likely to experience high degrees of learning loss over the Summer months.
Even if students only have time for 1 or 2 sessions per week, the tutor can help to monitor progress, identify key areas for improvement, and assign activities and exercises to be done at a convenient time outside of tutoring sessions. If possible, students should also continue tutoring with the same tutor they had during the school year. The student-teacher relationship is crucial.
If SchoolTutoring.com’s Summer Programs interest you, you can visit our dedicated page or contact an Academic Director at (877) 545-7737.
