To succeed in school and life, children need ongoing opportunities to learn and practice essential skills. This is especially true during the summer months. Summer is a glorious time for exploratory learning, creative pursuits and outdoor activities. It should not be a time when math, writing and reading skills slide backward.
All students experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer (White, 1906; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Cooper, 1996; Downey et al. 2004).
- Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months.
- Parents consistently cite summer as the most difficult time to ensure that their children have productive things to do (Duffett et al. 2004)
- Low-income students lose more than two months in reading achievement, more than other income groups (Cooper, 1996)
- Summer learning loss is NOT correlated to race, IQ or gender (Cooper, 1996)
- About two-thirds of the ninth-grade achievement gap between lower and higher income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities during the elementary school years (Alexander et al. 2007).
Research on summer learning loss is so persuasive the John Hopkins University founded the National Association for Summer Learning a decade ago. The organization is now independent of the university and can be found at http://www.summerlearning.org.
ThinkStretch is a proud member of the National Association for Summer Learning and has been nominated for its Excellence in Summer Learning Award.
