Education Focus
Keeping students off the summer slide By Brian Lazenby
R
eading, writing and arithmetic are the last things on kids’ minds during summer vacation. Most are focused on sports, video games and playing with their friends. This educational downtime contributes to what is known as the “summer slide,” when students lose much of the skill, knowledge and motivation acquired during the previous school year. In fact, a 2011 study conducted by the RAND Corporation shows that most students lose a month’s worth of learning by the time school resumes the following year. This phenomenon affects children of all ages and from all economic backgrounds, but it is most harmful to those students already struggling to keep up. However, it can be avoided. Broadband technology provides access to numerous websites and applications that transform computers and Wi-Fi-enabled tablets into tools that make learning fun and will help avoid the summer slide. Let's take a look at a few of the best sites for your kids to visit this summer. FunBrain.com, for example, is a site geared toward children in grades K-8 that offers online activities to boost learning in math, grammar, science, spelling and history.
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E-learningforkids.org is another site that specializes in providing fun, educational activities for children. Others include thekidzpage.com and pbs.org. According to many educators, one of the most valuable things students can do during the summer to avoid the slide is to continue reading. “Just because school is out doesn’t mean students should take a break from reading,” says Dennis Van Roekel, National Education Association president, on the group's website at www.nea.org. “When students return to their classrooms in the fall, we want reading to top the list of what they did this summer.” There are thousands of books available on just about any reading level that can be downloaded to an e-reader or wireless tablet. Farfarfia is an app for your smart tablet that gets kids excited about reading. It includes more than 100 stories in e-book form for kids ages 2 to 9, and new titles are added every week. This app will make reading fun for your child, and will make it easy to carry a whole load of books to the pool, the park or the beach — without lugging a heavy bookbag.
There are many other apps designed to keep your kids entertained all summer (they may not even realize they are learning!). For example: • PBS character apps are for children 6 and under who will love reviewing science and math skills with favorite characters from PBS shows. • Ruckus Reader, another educational app for children, offers a unique series of digital storybooks designed to help your child practice important reading skills. • Motion Math Games is one of the many apps that offers a variety of games focused on fundamental math skills. It provides fun with numbers for students ranging in age from 4 to 14, and studies show children who played the game improved their scores on a fractions test by 15 percent. • iLearnWith is an app that offers a suite of games to encourage children ages 3 to 6 to have fun while learning key developmental skills such as adding, counting, spelling, phonics and meteorology.
Summer vacation doesn’t mean your kids have to take a break from learning. By exploring these tools and the many others that are available, your child can still have fun while staying off the summer slide.