Summer learning loss and what you can do for your child
Summer learning loss
Most children tend to lose some of their school learning during the summer vacation.
A recent study showed that 70% to 78% of students lost Math skills during the summer compared to 62% to 73% of students in reading (pupils in elementary school grades).
In another study, researchers claimed that children lose approximately 2,6 months of math skills and 2 months of reading skills during their 3 months of summer vacation in the USA.
Facts on LOST SKILLS during the summer
Our brain is actually learning 24-7 all year round.
Research suggests that year-round learning is actually better for students.
Differences in summer vacations
The summer vacation period varies a lot between countries.
There is a huge difference in the length of the summer vacation between Denmark, which has 1 1/2 month and Romania which has 3 1/2 months.
It would seem probable that the countries that are having the longest summer vacation break are having bigger learning losses, but it is actually minimal. One reason is that children who have the longest summer vacation period tend to attend summer programs.
How to prevent summer learning loss
You can help your child to keep his brain active by doing all kinds of activities throughout the vacation.
A 15 minutes Math or reading activity per day is enough to keep the brain active and avoid learning loss during the summer break.
You can make this a fun family activity by spending 15 minutes together doing math games or reading an exciting story.
New workbook for your child
Newméro has launched Math Workbooks to help children to revise what they have learned during the school year.
It is best to use the newmero bricks when doing the exercises in the workbooks. The newmero bricks will help your child solve many of the exercises.
These workbooks are grouped by age levels as follows:
3-6 years (pre-kindergarten + Kindergarten)
6-7 years (1stgrade)
7-8 years (2ndgrade)
8-10 years (3rd-4thgrade)
These workbooks are currently available in English, but you will see that most of the exercises are self-explanatory, so there is a very limited amount of text in our workbooks.
The recommended retail price of a workbook is €5,5 euros/per piece (VAT is included) but it could be slightly different between countries.
Please contact us via email or social media if you want to purchase a workbook for this summer. You can send me an email to info@newmero about where you live and I will tell you where you can buy a copy of the workbook.
I wish you and your family a great summer vacation.
Christine
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Further recommended reading:
Pitts, C. M. T. and Kuhfeld, M. (2020) ‘Mind the kinder-gap: New data on children’s math and reading skills as they enter kindergarten’, Phi Delta Kappan, 102(2), pp. 36–39. doi: 10.1177/0031721720963228.
Patall, Cooper, & Allen, 2010.
Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., Greathouse, S. (1996). The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of Educational Research, 66 (3), 227–268.