Is the “summer slide” real? Do students really regress during their three months of summer vacation? Unfortunately, in many cases, yes. But your child does not have to be among them.
“Summer slide” refers to the learning loss children experience over vacation. For a long time, the evidence was mostly anecdotal, supplied by teachers who spent the first weeks of a new school year reteaching material students had seemingly learned the previous year.
The concept makes sense intuitively. After all, as adults, when we take a two-week vacation from work, doesn’t it take us a while to get back up to speed? Why wouldn’t the same thing happen to youngsters who have a layoff that’s six times longer?
This idea was supported by an influential 1996 study that confirmed summertime learning loss. It also quantified it with some startling numbers: “Summer loss equaled about one month on a grade-level equivalent scale.” This loss was most severe in math and spelling, and researchers found that it increased dramatically at higher grade levels. A 2020 study found that students in grades 1-8 can lose 17% to 34% of the prior year’s learning over summer break. It also indicates that for kids who fall behind one summer, the gap is likely to widen over time.
Since then, educators have refined those findings. Learning loss doesn’t happen across the board – the 2020 study shows that only half of students have learning loss, while some actually progress over the summer. However, learning losses “tend to accumulate to the same students over time,” significantly affecting their academic success. In other words, though it doesn’t happen to all students, the summer slide exists. We see it regularly at Reading Success Plus.
Losing ground
Lawrence Kloth, co-founder of Reading Success Plus, says the summer slide is something youngsters inevitably face if they “take a break” from tutoring over the summer.
“Some kids miss a month or two, and when they come back, they’ve fallen back behind,” he says. “Let’s say you take the whole summer off. School starts in mid- to late August. Count on at least a month of review and backtracking just to get back to where they were in the spring. So, you’re doing that all September, and you won’t start to make progress again until October.”
Further, the effects of the summer slide hit our students harder than the typical student because so many of our students have difficulty with short-term memory. “These kids don’t have the best working memory,” Lawrence says. “If they take the summer off, you almost have to start over.”
And while they are making up lost ground in tutoring, these students are also falling further behind in their regular classrooms. The goal of tutoring is to give them the tools to catch up there, but when they skip summer tutoring, those tools become a little duller.
“It’s pretty simple,” Lawrence says. “Instead of three months of progress that would bring them closer to grade level, they slide back a month. Getting up to grade level is the ultimate goal, and now they’re further from that goal than they were in the spring.”
Opportunities to grow
In contrast, continuing tutoring over the summer means steady progress.
“It’s going to take more than the summer to do it,” Lawrence says. “But we want to get to a point where the child says, ‘Hey, this is really making a difference.’ That’s when things happen.
“Self-confidence grows, and you’re going to see more positive self-esteem. You’re going to see a kid who understands the work, who wants to read, who isn’t afraid of math, who wants to go to school, instead of someone who doesn’t want to read and hates school. Behavior might improve, too, as confidence and school success improve.”
Statistics show that the summer slide is steeper when it comes to math.
“Certainly, kids who are in our math program would benefit from continuing through the summer,” Lawrence says. “And for other students who sometimes struggle with math, I would highly advise looking at tutoring, even if it’s just over the summer, so they’re ready to go when school starts.”
Summer tutoring also speeds the student through the Reading Success Plus program. For example, completion of the full Barton Reading & Spelling System can take two to four years. If you take three months off every summer and then use a fourth month for review, three years extend to four. You’ve potentially lost a whole year of academic success.
Making it work
The urge to pause tutoring for the summer is understandable. It’s no secret that our students don’t like schoolwork under any circumstances, and the last few weeks of the school year are the most stressful of all. They want a break, and parents do, too.
Also, summer is filled with activities – camps, sports, and family vacations, for starters. It’s tempting not to bother scheduling two tutoring sessions a week into all of that.
“We understand people need a vacation,” Lawrence says. “Something for the Fourth of July, a trip for a week or two, or maybe your family goes to a cottage in northern Michigan. I don’t blame people for doing that.
“But it’s really important to do some learning activity over the summer and to keep it continuous. You don’t want your student to fall behind and later, when they’re having problems, to look back and say, ‘You know, this could have been avoidable. We could have gotten ahead of what’s happening.’”
So how do you strike a balance? One way is to cut back – but not eliminate – tutoring. We stand by our recommendation for two sessions a week. Some families choose to double that by participating in our summer intensive program, doing four sessions a week for six weeks to accelerate students’ progress. But if twice weekly is too much, then cut back to one lesson.
“It’s not ideal,” Lawrence says, “but once a week will make a big difference as opposed to nothing. It keeps the student on a baseline, which is better than backsliding. The numbers bear that out – if you don’t do anything over the summer, it’s going to take much longer for your student to make progress.”
The second way to make summer tutoring easier is to take full advantage of online tutoring. If you usually have in-person sessions in the office, you may find that switching to online, even occasionally, will simplify your summer. Scheduling can be more flexible, you avoid transportation issues with summer daycare, and you can do lessons from anywhere. We’ve tutored students from cottages, campgrounds, hotels, and beach parking lots.
Setting up a tutoring session during a vacation may elicit major eye rolls and groans from your child, but with a little planning, it doesn’t have to be a huge burden. A 9 a.m. lesson before heading down to the lake or a 5 p.m. session while the grill is heating up really isn’t that bad.
Steps to success
For students who struggle through school, the stakes are too high to step away from learning for a quarter of the year. Aside from tutoring, parents have plenty of options to keep their children mentally sharp over vacation. The most important thing is to keep your child reading. As the website weareteachers.com points out, all reading is good reading. Let your children read whatever they like – comic books, manga, Captain Underpants, they all have something to offer. “Summer reading should have two goals: to sharpen kids’ literacy skills and to develop a love of reading to last a lifetime.”
Other suggestions from the website include:
- Provide structured learning activities, such as age-appropriate reading and math workbooks or a self-paced online learning program.
- Offer hands-on creative activities such as crafts, art, or building projects.
- Create family learning activities – perhaps group reading time, or educational board games.
- Sign your children up for summer camps that include enrichment activities.
- Find educational opportunities tied to your summer travel.
“The summer slide is a real thing,” Lawrence concludes. “You need to do something, and in my opinion, tutoring would be the way to go, especially for a student who struggles. Then keep on going through the school year.
“We want the child to do well and to succeed. This will make a big difference for them and get them where they need to be to make progress and get those As and Bs that they want.”
Reading Success Plus has offices in Grand Rapids and Troy. It offers one-on-one tutoring online or in person in reading, math, and writing, as well as personal and family coaching. You can get more information at readingsuccessplus.com. To contact us, call 833-229-1112 or go online to readingsuccessplus.com/contact.