 |
| Image Courtesy of The Horton Group, www.hortongroup.com |
Summertime brings with it long lazy days at the beach, hot fudge sundaes and ice cream cones, baseball games and BBQs. Forgotten are the days of getting up early, studying for tests, writing papers, and for many children, reading. As books and writing settle naturally to the back of children’s minds over vacation, so too does their education.
According to studies done by the John Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning, all students experience summer learning loss when they are not engaged in educational activities. In some cases, children score lower on standardized tests given at the end of the summer than on the same test given at the end of the school year. This loss of skills is often referred to as the “Summer Slide.”
One of the best ways to combat the effects of the Summer Slide is to read with your children. It helps keep their reading skills from slipping and can even improve them. In “Bridging the Summer Reading Gap”, University of Florida professors Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington state that “children who read as few as six books over the summer maintain the level of reading skills they achieved during the preceding school year. When children are provided with 10 to 20 self-selected children's books at the end of the regular school year, as many as 50 percent not only maintain their skills, but actually make reading gains.”
According to studies done by the John Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning, all students experience summer learning loss when they are not engaged in educational activities. In some cases, children score lower on standardized tests given at the end of the summer than on the same test given at the end of the school year. This loss of skills is often referred to as the “Summer Slide.”
One of the best ways to combat the effects of the Summer Slide is to read with your children. It helps keep their reading skills from slipping and can even improve them. In “Bridging the Summer Reading Gap”, University of Florida professors Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington state that “children who read as few as six books over the summer maintain the level of reading skills they achieved during the preceding school year. When children are provided with 10 to 20 self-selected children's books at the end of the regular school year, as many as 50 percent not only maintain their skills, but actually make reading gains.”
