As an educator, I'm completely baffled by the fact that we allow (and encourage!) our students in the United States to take two to three months off of learning over the summer. First (and probably most importantly) is the amount of learning loss that occurs when students do not actively engage in learning activities.
On average, students lose approximately 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency over the summer.* When you consider that students are only in school for 9 months, that's almost one-third of that learning time! So when students go back to school in the fall, the start of the school year is spent on review. How much time of that 9 months is used to recover the average 2.6 months of learning loss?
The second thing I wonder about is what expectation we are setting for life. How many jobs are there that take the summer off? If we consider that school is a child's job, then shouldn't we be setting the expectation that your job is year round? Parents should start early instilling a realistic work ethic in kids. Not that I believe there should be no break from work, by all means, we all need time for recreation! But entertainment and recreation should not take the place of learning for kids. We all need balance!
There are ways to have fun while you learn--learning SHOULD be fun! Summer is a great time to learn those math facts. Make a game out it by using playing cards and seeing who can add up two cards the fastest.
Start a neighborhood book club and read a book with a movie tie in. When everyone has finished the book, have a movie day as a reward and watch the movie version of the book. Have a discussion group about the similarities and differences between the movie and the book.
Keep a summer journal ('cause you know there will be a back-to-school writing assignment on "What I did this Summer"!) of activities that you do. Bottom line is, SUMMER BREAK SHOULD NOT BE A BREAK FROM LEARNING!
*Cooper, 1996
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