7 Reasons to Keep Your Child Learning This Summer
Many of us are still concerned about the impact on our children’s education from the disruption of the past few years. If you relate to this, perhaps you could consider including some learning to your children’s summer holiday schedule. Just a few hours a week could help your child catch up in the academic areas where they might have fallen behind or get to grips with skills they haven’t yet fully grasped during the school year.
Below are 7 reasons to extend your child’s learning into the summer…
- 1. Avoid the Summer Brain Drain
Academic skills are like other skills in that in order to keep them—you have to use them. Helping your child to keep their mind active and engaged throughout the summer will have positive effects on their return to school in autumn.
It’s been reported that students can lose about 2+ months of learning over the summer if they do not stay engaged in learning. Combined with the cumulative deficits from the last few years, summer learning loss could make transitioning back-to-school after the holidays even more difficult.
- 2. Fill in Skill Gaps While Moving at Your Child’s Pace
During the school year, teachers need to move quickly, whether your child fully comprehends the work/subject or not. Your child is constantly chasing a moving target. Over the summer, however, your child has the freedom to move at their own pace, without the pressure of keeping up with others. Your child can take the time needed to fill in any gaps they might have from the school year and build a strong foundation for the next —or even get ahead!
- 3. Head into Big Transition Years with Confidence
Throughout your child’s academic journey, there are certain transitions that represent milestone jumps in responsibility and independence. These big transitions include going from Pre-school to Primary school, Primary school to Secondary school, Secondary school to college/university.
Any support you can give your child to feel more confident ahead of these milestone transitions will make the going much easier.
- 4. Get a Jump on Higher-Level Maths Skills
If you know your child is going to be digging into higher-level maths skills in the new school year (such as fractions, pre-algebra or algebra), perhaps a summer tutor could help your child get a jump on these subjects.
Algebra, in particular, offers a whole new way of thinking for children. Introducing your child to higher-level maths concepts and to thinking in new ways can help to ease your child into this transition. When the new school year arrives, your child will be comfortably on the math train at the start of the school year, rather than get left behind at the station.
- 5. Raise Exam Results with Summer Help
Over the summer, your teen can focus on test-taking strategies and fine-tuning skills without all the stresses and distractions of school. It’s the perfect time to practice answer-plans using old exam questions, or even just writing for prolonged periods and avoiding hand cramp.
- 6. Learn How to Tackle Ever-Growing Workloads
There are some key organisational skills that are worth introducing your child to over the summer:
- Time management and organisation
- Study skills
- Test-taking strategies
- Research skills
- Effective presentation skills
- Note taking
Imagine heading into autumn knowing that your child will take ownership of schoolwork and feel more in control and resilient - even with all the challenges of a tougher school year. Imagine a school year without last minute scrambles and nagging over schoolwork.
Summer is the perfect time to build these skills for school—and for life!
Ideas for Extended Summer Learning
- Co-create a summer learning schedule with your child that outlines a daily plan for learning activities.
- Integrate summer reading
- Integrate fun but educational summer activities that you can do as a family such as gardening, engineering or DIY projects, science experiments, sports, problem solving activities, etc.
- Consider an online learning program suited to your child’s specific requirements
- Visit some museums and historical sites
- Encourage writing practice by way of journalling or creative writing
