Education expert tips on how to avoid ‘summer learning loss’

Students who take breaks from reading, writing or arithmetic for weeks at a time while on holiday risk suffering what experts call summer learning loss — but it’s not too late to catch up before the start of the new academic year.

“It’s always best to get an early start, but I don’t think it’s ever too late to prepare yourself,” said Layth Bajes, director of the Sylvan Learning centre in Abu Dhabi.

Studies in the US have shown that children who don’t engage in regular educational activities — ranging from simply reading a book to attending a recreational summer camp — score lower on standardised tests issued after the summer holiday compared to their performance in the spring.

“Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months,” according to the US National Summer Learning Association. “Low-income students also lose more than two months in reading achievement, despite the fact that their middle-class peers make slight gains.”

A 2013 survey by the NSLA of 500 American teachers showed that most educators need to spend up to four weeks reteaching students the previous year’s skills. A majority of the teachers surveyed also “agreed or strongly agreed that students who have participated in a summer learning programme are better prepared for school in the fall.”

Mr Bajes said many families turn to Sylvan Learning during the summer to help sharpen their children’s academic skills.

“We have kids that might come two or three times a week just to make sure that they’re progressing,” said Mr Bajes. “We don’t want to overwhelm them during the summer to the point where they lose that sense of having a summer break.”

Thomas Farquhar, dean of American curriculum at GEMS Education, said it was important for children to get some relief from the demands of daily academic life. But he added a break affords parents a critical opportunity to spend more time with their children and engage them in activities that promote learning as a family.

“Kids can get bored, and boredom is not a bad thing in itself but it creates an opportunity for the parent to design some activity,” said Mr Farquhar. “I would recommend families take time each day if possible for some family reading time. It’s great for parents, but it’s also wonderful for the kids.

“Anything the family is doing together from a child’s early age becomes normative. They think that’s just life.”

He also suggested spending family time solving logic puzzles, which can help improve maths and problem-solving skills.

“We know a lot of important learning occurs in the social-emotional context and the most important social-emotional context for any child is the family, and the summer is an opportunity where the family can actually find some time that might not be available during the school year,” he said. “It’s so important for students for creating language as well. So the kids are talking to their parents, they’re sharing narratives about what they experienced today, discoveries that they’re making. That’s just so important for the child’s development.”

Mr Farquhar also advises parents to encourage their children to engage in free, self-directed play.

“Increasingly children are missing out on opportunities — we’re supervising them so intensely, that they don’t have as many opportunities to design their own imaginative play,” he said. “We know that a lot of development and creativity comes out of self-directed, imaginative play, where children are either alone engaged in little narratives with their play things or with other children, with peers, designing fun activities together. I personally believe that that’s very important.”

Fatma Al Marri, CEO of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s Dubai Schools Agency, said that beyond exercising their brains during the summer, children need to be physically active.

“What they miss, and the parents have to work on, even if it’s summer, even if it’s hot, is exercise or the physical well-being,” said Mrs Al Marri. “They have to play, they have to run. We have all year sun, but Vitamim D, we always suffer Vitamin D. Why? Because kids are always locked inside with their iPad. They have to go out, they have to play, they have to run, they have to — even let them injure themselves, let them try, let them experience all these things. This is making not only a healthy body, but even making their personality.”

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