With vacations underway and kids off from school, parents need to keep in mind the problem of Summer Slide, which is learning loss over the months not attending school.
This loss is one of the most common causes of the achievement gap, or the differences in scores between students.
The average student loses 17% to 28% of school-year gains in English language arts during the summer and in math the average loss was around 25-30%, according to the American Education Research Association.
Not only that, research has found that summer slide can sometimes place students as much as three months behind their peers then they return to school in the fall and some are less likely graduate high school or have a higher-paying job later in life
That’s why parents should be aware of this potential problem and help their kids take steps needed to prevent learning loss.
One of the easiest solutions is to help keep kids reading during the summer. It’s been shown that the amount of time a child spends reading is directly connected to preventing summer learning loss and promoting long-term success.
Sally Ann Zoll, the CEO of United Through Reading, a nonprofit organization that works to put books in the hands of children of service members, discusses this potential problem and offers solutions.
