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Education Dive
With break almost over, teachers can still stem summer learning loss
Not all students experience the same educational slide, but all likely
benefit from educators reaching out with check-ins and suggestions.
Lauren Barack
Aug. 7, 2019
With summer break rounding the halfway mark toward a new school year,
educators will find that not every pupil forgot the previous year's
lessons during the time off. Experts believe summer learning loss is a
bit more nuanced and doesn't impact every student the same way.
“Some students have gains. There’s not a set number for everyone,”
Rebecca Lavinson, policy associate with the nonprofit American Youth
Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., told Education Dive. Lavinson
suggests that any outreach from educators — whether at the start of
summer, ideally, or later — is helpful.
“The sooner you can get materials out there, engage with students, get
them resources they need, and get them participating in academic
activities, the better,” she said.
If schools haven’t set up a summer program yet, experts say there is
still time to offer students suggestions that are doable for all
families in terms of time and financial demands. If summer is over,
assessing students quickly when they return — looking at reading
levels, for example — will be key to finding where they are now in
terms of skills, and determining how to get them back on track if any
loss has occurred.
Summer not over? Send texts, suggest visiting libraries
While nothing replaces a well-drawn summer learning plan put in place
prior to school ending in the spring, educators can help prep students
and parents with expectations and even some early materials over the
break.
Encouraging students to visit a library and spend a bit of their break
reading is a very helpful idea, notes Harris Cooper, a professor in
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University’s in
Durham, North Carolina.
“A teacher can reach out to the students who are going to be in his or
her class with maybe suggested reading, including books they’re going
to read for the class, so they can get a head start on what is often a
time-consuming activity for kids,” Harris said.
Harris co-authored a widely sourced meta-analysis on summer learning
loss, published in 1996. In the review, Harris and researchers found
summer learning loss increased as students went up in grade level, and
that opportunities and access to materials could impact subjects, as
well as the learning students lost.
Harris notes that student performance is more likely to slip in
mathematics, but that educators can suggest ways to focus on math over
the summer, such as calculating winning percentages if they’re in a
summer sports league.
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