When to Worry About ‘Summer Slide’? Tips to Help Fight Real Learning Loss

“But unless you’re already worried about the academic performance of your kid and looking to make sure that you use the summer really well for building those additional supports and additional learning, summer slide isn’t this big boogeyman that we need to all be kind of running scared from,” she said.

For kids who may already be struggling with academics as school ends, summer is a great time to catch up and help them become better prepared for the coming year. Schools sometimes run summer school for a few weeks or offer programs that combine learning, fun activities, and a review of the previous year.​

“For parents, [these district programs] are usually cheap or free, so it’s kind of the best of all worlds, where kids get to be part of activities during the day, often with their peers,” said Kuhfeld.

What are some great summer learning activities for kids?

For younger kids, Dr. M.H. Raza, an associate professor in the College of Education at Missouri State University, suggests parents keep learning activities simple during summer.

“Parents can make it natural; they don’t need to make learning a burden on their children,” said Raza.​

He adds that 20 minutes a day of pressure-free learning activity is usually all that it takes to help children grow intellectually during the summer.​

Raza listed the following as activities that parents can potentially utilize:

• Have your kids create a shopping list and take it with you to the grocery store. The children can look at the products, compare prices, and help with decisions on which product to buy.
• While driving, parents can point out road signs and ask their children to read them. Or they can ask their children to spell out the words they see.
• Parents can talk to their children about their life stories and experiences.
• Kids can be more involved with baking or cooking and helping measure ingredients.
• Parents can get children involved in backyard projects or science experiments.

For educators, researchers suggest teachers build in some time for reviewing the previous year’s content at the beginning of the year. Kuhfeld says most teachers are already doing this, according to past surveys and research.

“Teachers face such a challenge in terms of having to review material and fit in the whole year’s worth of curriculum,” says Kuhfeld. “Building in time for review seems to be pretty normative, and the expectation is that kids won’t have remembered everything they’ve learned in the previous year.”​

Learning loss in teens

However, it’s not just younger kids who may experience learning loss during breaks. Older students might also encounter the summer slide.​

“I believe that older kids, especially high school students and college students, also have a learning loss, but that learning loss is not quite documented,” says Raza.

He explains that critical thinking, engagement, self-reflection and hands-on application are all deeply connected to learning environments. When older students are disconnected from the academic environment or their collaborative peer groups, they often face learning loss. But he says more research needs to be done in order to quantify or measure the impact.

Todd Irving, principal of Pinole Valley High School suggests students look into non-traditional summer school activities. Irving points out that his school offers a program during the summer, but that students can also take courses at a local community college or even online.

“There are multiple ways that you can do summer school,” said Irving. “We encourage them to read and just do different things.” ​

​But he cautions against students taking on too much during the break.​

“One of the things that we don’t want to do is burn them out in summer school, and so that when they come back in September, by the time we get to October, November, they’re like ‘I’m burned,’” he said. “So we have to be really strategic with how we do that.”