Every year, around the end of May, schools across Atlanta, Georgia, close for the summer. All students, whether fourth-graders or highschoolers, excitedly wait for this time. Kids have all sorts of plans for the summer. Some want to visit family in another state, some want to learn a new skill, and others plan to work and save for college. The simple prospect of not having to wake up early in the morning to go to school every day, and not have to worry about assignments and quizzes for once, is enough to make any child happy.
While students rightfully deserve a break from a hard and demanding academic year, abandoning schoolbooks and bags to a dusty corner of the closet for the whole summer is a bad idea. It can set children back in studies and make it difficult to adjust to the school routine and continue learning when schools open in August.
Let us explore some ways in which learning during the summer is beneficial:
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- Prevent Summer Loss
Students who do not study during summer can lose about 20-30 % of the knowledge acquired during the school year. This process is called summer loss or summer slide and has been documented by researchers. As parents, it is up to you to ensure that your child gets to enjoy the summer yet does not lag in academics.
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- Provide Structure to the Day
Dedicating one or two hours a day to studying provides structure to your child’s day and gives him/her a routine to follow. Usually, it is a good idea to specify two or three hours in the late morning for lessons. This way, children won’t have to wake up too early, and will still have the rest of the day to themselves.
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- Improve Reading & Writing Skills
Integral to learning are reading and writing skills. If a student is unable to extract meaning from written text, or incapable of explaining ideas in their own words, learning is severely hindered. During the summers, students can work on their reading skills by reading topics of their interest. Writing summaries on the reading material or discussing them with friends and family can help their writing and speaking skills.
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- Tackle Challenging Subjects
Some students can find that a particular subject or some specific topics are challenging to grasp. Summer is an excellent time for focusing on the basic concepts of such topics and subjects and find new ways of understanding and solving problems. When children get better at a subject they previously thought was difficult, it greatly improves their self-confidence.
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- Prepare for Standardized Tests
Students who plan to attend college after graduating high school can make use of the summer holidays to prepare for SAT, ACT, GRE, etc. This will give them a competitive advantage over others and increase their chances of admission. Research shows that tutoring significantly increases SAT and ACT scores, and summer is an ideal time for availing private SAT tutoring.
Studying during the summer is essential, but it is good to remember that learning in the summer does not have to mean strict schedules or exhaustive sessions. Summer is a time to tap into the creative genius of children, to give them freedom and flexibility to carve their own path to learning through experimentation and trial-and-error. Employing creative ways of studying can make learning fun and also help keep your child on track.
As parents, you can take on the responsibility of organizing your child’s academic activities yourself, and you can also hand on this task to professionals, which is where we come in. Uplift Future Academics is a tutoring company in Atlanta, providing tutoring services to meet the needs of parents and students. You can enroll your child in our summer tutoring program or can get in touch with us to design a plan based on your child’s specific needs. Click here to get in touch with us and get more information.
