Inspiring Your Students to Read This Summer Four ways to avoid summer learning loss and why it matters. The end of the school year is approaching, and students are looking forward to summer vacation. Educators are ready for a break, too, but are also thinking about students losing momentum—and even some skills—during the summer months. How can we encourage kids to continue to read and learn, when we know that some setbacks are statistically probable? Sometimes referred to as summer slide, summer learning loss, or summer setback, researchers have been looking at this phenomenon for decades. The National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) attributes these setbacks to long summer vacations that “break the rhythm of continuous instruction and in turn lead to forgetting what was learned in the previous academic school year.” In a 2018 interview with Education Week, Matthew Boulay, NSLA Founder and CEO, talks about these challenges. Research by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) identifies the cumulative effect of summer learning loss as one of the principal factors—along with nutrition, parental involvement, and child motivation—that are deepening the achievement gaps between students by family income. The problem becomes more pronounced for English language learners, who may lose access to English speaking adults during summer months. Here are some ways you can help your students stay sharp over the summer, and make summer reading a fun choice: 1. ALL READING COUNTS Let students know that all forms of reading count. From short books, chapter books, fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, and magazine articles, to ebooks on mobile devices, they should read what interests them. Books on tape build language skills and encourage a love of storytelling, and struggling readers can use audio support as they follow along with a print version. Encourage parents to read to their children, or to […]
