Great Expectations
It’s time to say good-bye,
our year has come to an end.
I’ve made more cherished memories
and many more new friends.
I’ve watched your child learn and grow
and change from day to day.
I hope that all the things we’ve done
Have helped in some small way.
So it’s with happy memories
I send them out the door.
With great hope and expectations,
for what next year holds in store.
The above is a poem that some teachers read to their students at the end of the year. As the days get longer and the air gets warmer, we can feel summer creeping up on us. For children, summer means outdoor sports, picnics, and of course, no school! Teachers and students work hard all year long – and everyone deserves a break from education over the summer. However, this two-month break can often have some pretty devastating consequences.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University discovered that children tend to lose approximately two and half months worth of material over the summer. That is, rather than retaining the material they have mastered during the school year, student who do not flex their academic muscles over the summer revert back to the skills they had in April as opposed to June. Researchers call this phenomenon “summer brain drain.”
In The New York Times, Harris Cooper of Duke University notes, “There is growing concern about the summer vacation’s possible negative impact on learning. Many educators argue that children learn best when instruction is continuous. The long summer vacation disrupts the rhythm of instruction, leads to forgetting, and requires time be spent reviewing old material when students return to school in fall.” That means that without any intervention, children can begin the next grade reading and doing math at a lower level than the previous year. Additionally, because reading and math are cumulative subjects, when the students have to relearn what they have previously mastered, this further sets them back.
Often, it is the students who can least afford to lose the reading gains they’ve achieved during the school year who fall the farthest behind when they return to the classroom after a summer break away from formal literacy instruction. On the other hand, studies have shown that with a minimal amount of effort on the part of parents and children, it is possible to have modest gains in skills over the summer. What this means is that over the course of grades one through six (when basic skills are ingrained and solidified), summer loss or gain can contribute to more than a year and a half decline or growth in skills.
Battling “Summer Brain Drain”
So, how can we as parents and educators ensure that our children continue to use their brains over the summer, but do not regard the reading and math that they do as “work?” How can we teach our children that learning can and should take place outside of the classroom in addition to in the classroom?
Time: Often, during the summer, children feel that they need a break from their daily routine that they follow through the year. They don’t want to be forced to sit down at the table after camp and do “homework.” Instead of maintaining the regular schedule, change it up a bit. Let your child know that if he wants to read at night, he can stay up an extra half hour past his bedtime. This will seem like fun to him and will also be a change from the regular grind.
Choice: Usually in school, children are forced to read the books that their teachers assign, whether the subject appeals to them or not. Denise Pope, a co-founder of Challenge Success, a research and student intervention project, explains that motivation plays a central role in engagement with learning and, subsequently, student achievement. If students are given choice and voice in the learning process, for example, they are more likely to want to learn the material and more likely to retain it. Therefore, allow your child to choose his own reading material over the summer – and offer a wide selection so that he can find books to his liking.
Involvement with others: Everything is more enjoyable when you do it with someone else – learning included. Adults have book clubs to discuss literature and men learn with chavrusas. Reading often seems like a solitary experience, but it need not be that way. There are many ways to guarantee that reading can be a shared experience.
Read with your child: Choose a chapter book that suits your child’s interests and read one chapter each night before he goes to sleep. During the day, encourage your child to read ahead. Then, you can discuss what he has read before you continue on to the next section.
Some good books for different grades:
First and second grade:
Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Are Friends
David Adler’s Young Cam Jansen and the Lost Tooth
Third and fourth grade:
Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Patricia MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall
Fifth and sixth grade:
Avi’s The True Confession of Charlotte Doyle
E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
Create reading groups: Kids always enjoy acting as grown-ups. If they see you reading a book or magazine article and discussing it with your friends, they might be excited to do the same with their friends. During the summer, find time once a week and set up a special “literary café” (with lemonade and snacks) for your children and their friends. You can also alternate houses. At the meeting, the kids can talk about the books they have read and trade them. This will show your children that reading can be a fun and communal experience.
Find reading opportunities as a family: There are constantly opportunities to read – while driving, walking, or shopping. When in the car, encourage your children to read the signs, while walking ask them to read the awnings and posters, and in the supermarket, have them read the backs of the cereal boxes. This takes education beyond the classroom and into their daily lives.
Be a role model. If you want your child to be a reader, you need to show him that you enjoy reading as well. In other words, practice what you preach. Set aside time as a family to read. Especially on Shabbos, this is a feasible family activity – seforim are books too! Showing your child that you personally value reading will encourage him to pick up reading on his own.
Of course, the summer is about the warm weather, family time, and relaxation. The key is figuring out how to make those pleasurable parts of summer merge with some educational activity. This way, when your children get back to school, they won’t be faced with “brain drain” and can pick up right where they left off. Or, if done right, you never know, they may even get a head start on the rest of the year.
