The summer lends itself to be a time when children can enjoy the outdoors being carefree as they await the beginning of a new school year. However, during the summer months a child can lose up to two months of skills taught during the school year. According to Cincinnati Parent a child will lose as much as 25% of what he learned during the school year over the summer months. Parents can work with their children on Language Arts and Mathematics skills to prevent learning loss from occurring.
Speak to Your Child’s Teacher
Report cards usually go out on the last day of school. If you know about areas from the second term report card needing reinforcement, you should speak to the teacher before the end of the school year. Classroom teachers are your best resource for information and they know exactly which skills your child should strengthen over the summer. You should also ask the teacher for some suggestions for activities and if a booklet of worksheets can be sent home for your child.
Go Shopping for Resources
Once you find out what skills need reinforcing, you can find websites on the Internet that will offer free printable worksheets. These sites will also give parents hands on activities to use with their child. Try to incorporate as many hands on activities as possible, since children may become bored when only using pencil and paper worksheets.
Keep a Journal
Your child should be encouraged to keep a summer journal and should write every other day. This is your child’s journal and you should avoid correcting any spelling mistakes. Let you children feel secure in knowing they can freely write their feelings without being corrected.
Daily Reading
Reading at home daily is essential to maintaining and improving reading skills. Your child can read aloud or quietly alone for at least ten to fifteen minutes a day. For more daily reading activities at home you can read the article "How to Promote Summer Reading at Home".
Family Games/ Puzzle Night
Playing board games can strengthen math and language arts skills. Many skills are taught through games when your child reads cards, spells out words, counts spaces or counts money. There are many board games that promote language and math skills such as Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders and Scrabble to name a few.
Putting together puzzles is another great way to improve math skills. Problem solving skills use the same type of thought processing as found in math problems according to Math and Reading Help for Kids. By enjoying family time putting a puzzle together you are practising essential math problem solving skills.
Going to the Cottage
Planning on staying at your cottage can be a fantastic way to teach language and math skills. Here are some suggestions:
- Have your children make lists of what to bring to the cottage from clothing, food, games, beach toys etc.
- Plan out a budget for food and go grocery shopping with calculators. Have your children calculate to make sure they are sticking to the budget. When the money is gone it is gone.
- Have your children learn more about the history of the area where your cottage is located.
- Let your children plan events every night for one week at a time.
- Collect shells from the beach and look for similarities and differences.
- Have a contest of who can build the tallest sandcastle.
- Read on the beach listening to the waves roll in.
- Paint or draw pictures of the landscape surrounding the cottage.
- Journal the next day of what was the favourite activity from the day before.
The summer months give your child the much-needed time to reinforce skills to ensure a strong start to the new school year. It is important to remember to speak with your child’s teacher about skill areas needing strengthening and ask for advice. By reading daily, journal writing and Family Puzzle Nights are excellent activities that help promote learning and will prevent learning loss over the summer months.
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