Stop your child’s learning slide

With 12 days left in the school year, students and teachers are all focused on completing the term and taking a well-deserved break from books and academic studies. For students, the summer holidays are synonymous with relaxed schedules, staying up later than usual, sleeping in and absolutely none of the familiar school-like routines, but for educators, long holiday vacation can be synonymous with “summer skill slide”.

The summer slide, often also called summer learning loss, is a phenomenon in which students lose several weeks’ or even months’ worth of knowledge and skills during long summer vacation, skills that they worked so diligently throughout the academic year to build.

In a recently published review on the subject 39 studies revealed significant loss of student knowledge and skills over the summer. Further, the severity of the learning loss was correlated with family income: less affluent families, whose children are more likely to spend their summer surfing channels or the web than enrolled in summer enrichment programs, return to school after the break even farther behind than their wealthier peers.

Summer skill slide strategies

To a lesser or greater degree a certain amount of ‘skill slide’ is inevitable, despite what some parents will do to try and avoid it.

While some children may relish the opportunity to spend their holiday attending a summer school, tutoring sessions or a sports and crafts directed programme, there will certainly be those who would rather do anything but. It is important that parents know their child, recognise what motivates them and understand their personal interests. Identifying enrichment activities that are relevant and meaningful for a child can result in even the most mundane tasks or experiences becoming fun memorable learning opportunities.

Obviously, whether a family remain in Dubai or travel abroad will dictate holiday activities, although so much still depends on the individual personality and interests of each child.

Find a balance

Whether it’s trips to museums, bookstores, theme parks or the movies, parents should to look to maintain a balance between ‘work’ and ‘play’. Appeal to your child’s natural drive to explore new activities and ideas, which are often motivated by genuine interest. Trying to pack a child’s holiday with what they perceive to be stimulating or educationally beneficial activities will exhaust a parent (and their wallet) long before it tires out their child.

Research from the Journal of Pediatrics supports the importance of play and unstructured time in child development, regardless of the age of the child. According to a recent article, free time for play or other self-chosen activities appears to enhance children’s learning readiness, learning behaviours and problem solving skills.

The article states further that play seems to increase a child’s capacity to store new information in memory. A balanced plan might include any sort of school-like activity, such as journals, or writing emails to Dad still back in Dubai, be interspersed with time for imaginative, creative, and self-determined activities.

By knowing their own child’s unique personality and taking the time to see things through their eyes, the summer holidays provide a fantastic opportunity for parents to feel, enjoy and regain the wonder of noticing things they don’t normally have the time for.

As much as possible, parents should give their child their greatest, most precious asset (and something that is free)… their time! Talk together, read to each other, listen to what your child has to say.

Ways to Stop Skill Slide: How to engage your child and enrich their summer

At the grocery store: To help children keep up their number skills, ask them to make the grocery list, list the prices as you shop and total up the amount to see if you stay in budget.

In the kitchen: Your kitchen is a science lab in and of itself. Practice fractions by measuring ingredients. Discuss healthy options by experimenting together with fresh fruits for homemade ice cream, ice pops or smoothies. Add a writing element by collecting your recipes. Encourage your child to plan the menu for a picnic or garden party.

In the garden: Let your children have an area to plant and tend. You will both be delighted to see (and graph) your garden’s growth. If you plant edibles, you can enjoy it at the end of the summer at a dinner of your own homegrown vegetables - an entire world of ideas to explore right there.

Study the birds and bugs in your yard. If you are spending the summer in Dubai, make an alternative indoor window garden. Draw, count, keep a record - all skill protectors that are fun at the same time.

Be an adventurer: Find your city’s community calendar or newspaper listings and choose an adventure for the day. Consider and evaluate the options - debate and make choices together. In Dubai, we have a farmers’ market to visit to learn about vegetables.

Attend any community performance or music events, and then research the instruments. Head to the local parks, garden or nature centres, visit the Sharjah Wildlife Centre. When you return home, everyone can draw what they saw.

Be a techie: Try this application that combines tech and gets you and your child outdoors– geo-caching is a high-tech treasure hunt you can do in just about any city in the world, including Dubai.

Go free: Many of the best summer learning activities are free. Visit museums on free days. In Dubai, a number of galleries are still open all summer and always free. Go to the zoo on free day and now many have a night at the zoo, as does our own Al Ain Zoo.

Use the library for the minimal cost of a family membership.

Working during the day and can’t take the children to the library? Go at night, many libraries have late night hours, plus libraries are filled with schedules of activities and special programs for all age groups.

Get caught reading: Visit a bookstore - a great place to discover thousands of stories, characters and reading adventures. Exercise the skill of thinking and reflecting by encouraging your child to read a few pages and evaluate which books deserve to be bought, taken home and finished.

Try grouping books at home to create a home library. Start a book club to share stories with neighbours, friends, or cousins. With the assistance of technology, you don’t have to be in the same location anymore to share a story. Write scripts and act out stories from favourite books. Create a starring role for family pets!

Rob Ingham, Grade 2 teacher and Susan Simmons Whistler, Communications at Uptown School, Dubai.