"Summer time and the living's easy."
What about "those lazy, crazy-hazy days of summer?"
These songs by Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole are just some of the things that pop to mind when we think about summer vacation.
I can remember leaving the last day of sixth grade and hearing one of my classmates say a familiar rhyme about there being "no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks." For children, summer has always had a connotation of fun, relaxation and a respite from stress.
Even as I complete my seventh decade of life I still see summer as a time to recharge my internal batteries and look for that new beginning.
However, today our children are in a fairly high-pressure school environment. Academic standards have been raised and high-stakes testing has become the norm.
Teachers certainly feel the stress to increase student academic achievement and our children also share that stress. Everyone wants to get away from stress and relax, but summertime, as fun as it is, is also a time of learning loss.
During the period students are out of school they will suffer a regression in learning that puts them behind when they start school again in August. It is estimated, based decades of research, that students lose two months grade-level equivalency in math and lower-income children will lose two months or more in reading ability.
This is often called the "summer slide."
This creates a challenge for teachers who start school in August and find their students are behind where they left off in June. Teachers need to teach 14 months of skills just to get 12 months of growth in an academic year.
It is frustrating for students and extremely frustrating for teachers who feel pressure to raise student achievement and score high on tests. So, what can parents do to help their children avoid this learning loss?
The "summer slide" is not inevitable and parents don't have to create and continue the pressure to meet the new standards. Learning can be fun and summer is a great time for students to internalize what it means to be a lifelong learner.
Parents can take their students to the public library. The Fayetteville Public Library is one of the great gems of Northwest Arkansas. Let your child pick out books that are high interest. Look at the Harry Potter craze where children were reading text that was often years above their reading level.
Children will push through tough text if the material is of extremely high interest. If Mom and Dad also read the same books and talk about them at the dinner table it will stimulate higher-level thinking skills.
As a skill, reading is not difficult. To be a good reader, children have to read. The more they read, the better they read.
For math, if you are taking a trip, let your children plan it. How many miles are we going? How long will it take us to get there? What should our average speed be to arrive at 5 pm.
If the child has an allowance or has a little summer income have them develop a ledger to account for income and expenditures. Students can keep track of their water intake, how many calories they are eating and what food groups.
There are numerous resources on the internet identifying learning activities for children to engage in during the summer and they are a lot of fun.
Although I've talked about the "summer slide," it is not unusual to see students return to school at a higher reading and math level from the end of the previous school term.
These students actually grow academically each summer. Summer time is a great time for parents to engage their children in enriching learning activities.
The good news is, it is fun for the child and the parents find they are also having a lot of fun, too. Summertime is fun time, but also a great learning time.
Commentary on 06/26/2014