What is the Summer Slide and How to Stop it

June 1, 2016 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

My daughter is 6 and she’s been out of school for about a week already. This long summer — 12 weeks! — is great for lots of fun and time together, but it’s easy to see how all that time away from the classroom might cause her skills to slip a bit.

This phenomenon has a name, the summer slide, and it’s a real thing. Research has shown that kids do less well on standardized tests at the end of summer than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer, and kids can lose up to two months of grade level equivalency in math skills over the summer.

Of course we don’t want summer to feel like school, for our kids or for us, but there are simple things we can do to help prevent or at least limit summer slide.

One of the most important things we can do is to keep our kids reading. Just 20 minutes a day is enough to keep up that skill. Plan a weekly trip to the library and let you kids check out whatever they want, then make time daily for you to read to them, for them to read to you and for silent reading (or any combination depending on your child’s age).

Another great idea is taking kids to museums, historical sites and cultural events and to talk about what you see and how those things and activities relate to things they’ve been learning. We’re heading to the children’s museum this afternoon, which has great STEM activities as well as more traditional play.

Work a little age-appropriate learning into your day, whether through at-home science experiments, online math games or even watching educational videos. Search online for learning activities related to your child’s interests to make learning more fun for them. I added some activities related to math, typing and reading into our summer activity pot, so when she’s looking for something to do she knows those sorts of things are options.

If you have the means, enrolling kids in summer learning opportunities is also a great way to beat the summer slide. Whether it’s a weeklong engineering camp, an art day camp or a full-on summer program, every little bit of learning helps. My daughter will actually be in a summer program for about half the summer, and while it’s not the same as a classroom, it should keep her focused on learning in a fun way through the summer.

Need more ideas for beating the summer slide? Check out these tips from the Jenny Evolution and the Department of Education.

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Fun End of the School Year Activities for the Classroom

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Book Review: Las Mañanitas

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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