Summer Learning Loss-Things to Know about

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There are students who score bright marks in their academic year, but there are other students too who achieve poor levels in academic. This majorly happens after the summer break. This phenomenon is referred to Summer Learning Loss or summer slide. But what is summer learning loss or summer slide?

In precise, summer learning loss is referred as the tendency for students to lose some achievement gains when they are out of school during the summer season. The concept of summer slide came into the origin during the research studies arguing the educational level of students. When the schools re-opened after summer holidays, the ability of learning was low among few students. This generally takes place for one or two months of learning. Majority of students found a problem in subjects like Maths, physics, and other analytical subjects.

Overcoming the Problem:

Educators and policymakers relied majorly on summer school learning programs to help students combating the summer loss. In the year 2000, Cooper and colleagues came up with a comprehensive meta-analysis of summer programs done in classrooms. However, it was found that middle-income students benefited more with the summer programs compared to lower-income students.

This analysis gave the result that programs served to middle-income students were of high quality, compared to lower-income students. Moreover, it was also because of the interactive effect between programming and home resource. There were many recommendations to help students cope up with the summer slide. One of the common suggestions was blending academic learning with recreational activities and also forming partnerships with community organizations.

Summer programs which have research-based literacy instruction and programs using instructional strategies will have a major impact.

Home-based summer reading program also considered as the best method to help students, especially low-income upper elementary school students. Another method which thought to be effective was sending of text messages over summer to families of elementary school students. This helped in improving the reading scores of third-and-fourth grades.

Conclusion:

Schools undertaking summer learning programs need to make sure that students don’t feel like a punishment. The learning program should be engaging and exciting, as they can enjoy rather getting the feeling wasting the summer holidays.