SUMMER + COVID SLIDE
4-minute read.
This post was edited May 28, 2019 .
We’ve all heard about Summer Slide before – it’s the phenomenon that we see year after year when our students return to school after three months of laying by the pool, hanging out with friends, traveling with family, and eating ice pops. Don’t get me wrong, all of those things are important (especially the ice pops), but here at Tutoring Club of McLean (TCM) we want to ensure that our students aren’t losing what they’ve learned over the last school year in the process.
What Is Summer Slide?
Research has long shown that this Summer Slide occurs for those students who don’t remain academically challenged in summer. As much as 25% of academic progress can be lost in the course of a summer free of learning, with reading and math being the subjects that take the biggest hits. Think about all that time and energy wasted mastering equations, memorizing facts, and reading and discussing literature!
For some, that learning loss is cumulative year upon year. For example, students who lose reading skills every summer can fall as much as two full years behind classmates by the end of sixth grade. And that loss occurs under normal circumstances!
How Does Coronavirus Impact This?
During our Covid-era, we are experiencing some of the most unusual circumstances that we have ever faced. The necessary switch most states made to online learning has had an enormous on our education system and will likely continue to do so for some time. Preliminary research conducted by NWEA has shown that, with Covid-19 coming into play, learning loss over the summer could increase up to 30% in reading and up to a staggering 50% in math.
While it is still difficult to say exactly what the long term impacts of coronavirus will look like, the more we read and learn about the subject, the easier it will be for us as educators, mentors, and parents to understand, plan for, and address some potential issues that we will face when our students return to school.
In-person and online Tutoring Sessions at TCM provide a great way for students to avoid Summer Slide, while still getting a break from their typical school environment. Ask for a Free Consultation to learn more about the individualized instruction required to help your child become a more proficient and confident reader, writer, or mathematician by the time school starts next fall.
At TCM, we strongly believe that it is more vital than ever to proactively prevent this more pronounced Slide in our students so that they can return to school in the fall with confidence. By keeping plenty of academic activities on their schedules during the summer months, we aim to assist your child in retaining as much of what they learned in the last year as possible. This in turn will help them to build and foster lifelong respect for their own education.
And for all you parents out there who have invested so much during the past school year to help your child improve in the classroom, we’ve come up with some helpful tips for how to keep your little scholar engaged in academics over the summer, too.
3 Simple Ways to Keep Your Student Engaged in Learning This Summer
Offer an incentive for your child to finish a book (or five!)
Books are the new video games, right? Okay, maybe not to some, but there are SO many good books to read out there, across a wide range of topics that could be interesting to your child. This year, TCM is going to be making book suggestions for various age groups every Wednesday on our Instagram page to go along with our Summer Reading Contest theme: Tour de Tutoring: traveling to past host countries for the Olympics!. Check out our hashtag, #TCMBookClub for more information and don’t forget to tag us when sharing any of your own recommendations! We’d love to see what’s on your international reading list.
Engage your child in daily and weekly writing activities
Been putting off writing your weekly shopping list or that thank you letter you meant to send back in January? Ask your little one for help! Any chance for them to practice grammar, punctuation, and spelling is an opportunity to jump at. Frequent writing is proven to build vocabulary, strengthen spelling, and improve grammar.
Show them how math can be useful in everyday life
For your littles, ask them to help you calculate your grocery bill as you shop, or how much it will cost to fill up your gas tank, or the mileage for an upcoming road trip – the possibilities are endless! Will your student be taking geometry during the upcoming year, or did they take it this past year? Perhaps they can help out with a little home redecorating. Ask them to figure out how to center a picture frame and where the nail(s) should go without using a calculator. That’s sure to bring out their inner Einstein.
If your child has difficulty with reading, writing, or math or just seems reluctant to engage with any sort of learning activities, consider enrolling at Tutoring Club of McLean and we’ll do the heavy lifting! We know summer isn’t all about work, and we’re committed to making learning F-U-N by offering all kinds of activities, contests, prizes, and more during these hot months (and beyond!). We hope to see you and your child in our center or online!
Until then, stay healthy, stay motivated, and enjoy your summer!
Michelle Scott
Owner/Director
Tutoring Club of McLean
703.237.TUTOR (8886)
Email: McLeanVA@tutoringclub.com
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