Research: 3-month break plays major role in achievement gap

With summer vacations over or winding down, education experts say teachers will spend the first four to six weeks of the new school year simply rehashing material that their young charges learned in the previous school year but forgot over the summer.

It’s a phenomenon so well-recognized that it even has a name: the summer slide.

“Research confirms what most people accept as common sense, which is that if you don’t practice something, you suffer a loss,” said Ron Fairchild, executive director of the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University.

Studies have found that students in all income groups fall an average of 2.6 months behind in math skills, possibly because few students are likely to practice much outside the classroom.

But when it comes to the summer slide in reading, household income is an important factor. Children in low-income households lose an average of two months in reading ability, while their middle- and upper-income counterparts tend to make slight gains in reading levels over the summer months.

Researchers attribute that difference in part to greater opportunities for children in more affluent households to participate in costly summer programs such as specialized camps, or to go with parents on educational vacations that keep their minds stimulated.

And new research is showing that the summer slide is more than just a temporary nuisance. In a study released earlier this year, sociologists at Johns Hopkins concluded that the summer learning gap between well-off and poor students that starts in elementary school has a powerful influence on reading scores through high school and beyond…

Source: Chicago Tribune, United States
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