Kids can grasp things quickly when taught well. If they like the subject or the teacher, the interest is all that much more. Some kids take more time to learn, and teachers put in extra effort to get them up to speed with the other kids. Teachers make a lot of difference.
When summer vacation ends, kids return to school with a loss in learning. As both parents work, it does get more difficult for parents to stay home and help the kids stay on top of what they learnt the previous academic year. Many a time teachers spend an inordinately large amount of time in getting kids to recall the skills they had learnt before the vacation. Sometimes kids lose up to a month of learning in mathematics. Naturally this is an unhappy situation both for kids and the teachers. To avoid such a slide, summer school programs which were started primarily to keep kids lightly occupied in the summer are now moving towards core teaching.
Summer Camps
Summer vacation has been morphing over the last many decades. From being no vacation in the early 1800s (to facilitate planting in spring and fall) it went to being no school in the late 1800s and early 1900s (to have relaxed family vacations and a break from mental taxation). At that point summer camps came into being. They were primarily to help cultivate hobbies. It was completely non-academic and unregulated.
Today many of these summer camps are slowly adding academics. Hand in hand with this, public schools have doubled the summer camps they hold. They are including more of the core subjects. Kids who go to these summer camps, keep in touch with academics thus avoiding the summer slide.
Playing Games
Parents can help with avoiding the summer slide. Play with your kids. Spend time talking mathematics. Read to them. Read plays or books where there are many characters whose parts can be read by each one participating. Most of the slide is noticed in math and reading. Make a little effort to help your kids. It can be fun. One fun way could also be playing educational math games with your kids. Get the kids to do some math or reading worksheets through the summer. Play board games which require math and reading.
Fun yet educational trips
Sometimes kids need to learn outside their usual classroom. One of the easiest places to take them to is a good museum. For bright minds, there are few things which are better. Even better enroll them into a summer program at a museum close to your place. If you have easy access to a national park, make a trip. Stay a day or two. Let the kids see first hand all that they study about in class. Land forms, vegetation and biological systems. If you have a mathematics exhibit locally, take the kids.
Parents can help prevent the summer slide. It requires some patience and imagination. Childhood flashes by very quickly. Before we know it the kids are all grown up and gone. Summer months are the best months to interact with the kids and stop the summer slide.
When summer vacation ends, kids return to school with a loss in learning. As both parents work, it does get more difficult for parents to stay home and help the kids stay on top of what they learnt the previous academic year. Many a time teachers spend an inordinately large amount of time in getting kids to recall the skills they had learnt before the vacation. Sometimes kids lose up to a month of learning in mathematics. Naturally this is an unhappy situation both for kids and the teachers. To avoid such a slide, summer school programs which were started primarily to keep kids lightly occupied in the summer are now moving towards core teaching.
Summer Camps
Summer vacation has been morphing over the last many decades. From being no vacation in the early 1800s (to facilitate planting in spring and fall) it went to being no school in the late 1800s and early 1900s (to have relaxed family vacations and a break from mental taxation). At that point summer camps came into being. They were primarily to help cultivate hobbies. It was completely non-academic and unregulated.
Today many of these summer camps are slowly adding academics. Hand in hand with this, public schools have doubled the summer camps they hold. They are including more of the core subjects. Kids who go to these summer camps, keep in touch with academics thus avoiding the summer slide.
Playing Games
Parents can help with avoiding the summer slide. Play with your kids. Spend time talking mathematics. Read to them. Read plays or books where there are many characters whose parts can be read by each one participating. Most of the slide is noticed in math and reading. Make a little effort to help your kids. It can be fun. One fun way could also be playing educational math games with your kids. Get the kids to do some math or reading worksheets through the summer. Play board games which require math and reading.
Fun yet educational trips
Sometimes kids need to learn outside their usual classroom. One of the easiest places to take them to is a good museum. For bright minds, there are few things which are better. Even better enroll them into a summer program at a museum close to your place. If you have easy access to a national park, make a trip. Stay a day or two. Let the kids see first hand all that they study about in class. Land forms, vegetation and biological systems. If you have a mathematics exhibit locally, take the kids.
Parents can help prevent the summer slide. It requires some patience and imagination. Childhood flashes by very quickly. Before we know it the kids are all grown up and gone. Summer months are the best months to interact with the kids and stop the summer slide.
