3 Easy and Fun Ways to Avoid the Dreaded Summer Slide

Summer is quickly approaching! And, to most students’ delight, so is no school, exciting vacations, the ability to sleep in, and lots more fun! Though summer is the perfect time for relaxation and amusement, it’s important to make sure that your child doesn’t completely put their academics on the back burner! Doing so could easily result in the dreaded “summer slide.”

As a parent, you can help your child avoid this disadvantageous trend. The summer slide is not at all like the fun and amusing water slide at a water park; it’s quite the opposite. If you’ve never heard of the summer slide or are looking for ways to combat this trend, read on for useful tips and information you don’t want to miss out on.

What is the Summer Slide?

So, what exactly is the summer slide? Simply put, the summer slide is a decline in academic skills, especially in math, that can occur over the summer while your child isn’t in school. In other words, when your child does not exercise their math skills over the summer, it’s extremely likely that their academic abilities will slip over the summer.

This makes perfect sense though, right? If your child wants to learn how to do a flip, but completely stops practicing for three months, it’s inevitable that their skills will decline. The same thing applies with your child’s math skills. If they take an entire summer off from exercising these skills, it’s no surprise that their abilities may slip.

Shocking Statistics About the Summer Slide

Numerous studies have been conducted over the years that have discovered heartbreaking statistics on the prevalence of the summer slide. A few of these major statistics are:

• The average student loses 1 to 3 months of learning over the summer | Brookings Institute
• Students experience a greater decline over the summer in math skills than in any other subject | Brookings Institute
• Older students’ academic skills decline more over the summer than younger students’ | Brookings Institute
• Up to 6 weeks of the fall semester is spent relearning the previous year’s content | National Summer Learning Association

How to Help Your Child Avoid Summer Slide

As the statistics show, the summer slide is certainly something you want to help your child avoid. Fortunately, there are easy ways to help your child maintain their math skills without the structure of a comprehensive lesson plan and daily homework.

Here are 3 easy and fun ways to avoid the summer slide:

Cook Together

Most children, especially younger ones, love to lend their parents a helping hand whenever they can! So, your child will love being asked to help cook a delicious meal or dessert.

Cooking is the perfect activity to practice measurements and fractions. While cooking with your child, simply ask them questions, like, “If we need to double this recipe, and the recipe calls for 1¾ cups of water, how many cups do we need to use?” Or, challenge them by asking them to complete tasks like measuring out 2½ cups of water using only ¼ measuring cup. Cooking gives you numerous opportunities to help your children to keep those basic math skills sharp!

Play Math Games

Just as we mentioned in our previous blog about preparing for the math EOGs, math games are an incredibly helpful way to ensure that your child exercises their math skills! And, what child doesn’t like video games? Fortunately, with a quick Google search, you’ll find a number of free math games that are both fun and engaging. For example, Math Game Time and Math Playground are both awesome resources that have countless math games which exercise skills like fractions, multiplication, algebra, and geometry. Their games are even organized by grade to make it more convenient.

Encourage your child to play these math games a certain number of times each week to promote consistency. Or, you could also require them to play a set amount of time, such as 15 minutes, before they get to play their other video games. Whatever schedule works for your family, just make sure it’s consistent!  

Spend Time at Mathnasium!

Did you know that with just 2 to 3 sessions at Mathnasium each week over the summer, you can prevent a slip in your child’s math skills? In other words, rather than stress over if your child has spent an adequate amount of time practicing their math skills, you could simply send them to Mathnasium, where they will not only maintain and advance the math skills they have learned over the school year, but they will also have an enjoyable time!

During the summertime at Mathnasium, each day is a unique and fun themed day, filled with fun games, prizes, and laughter. So, while your child will be completing their personalized, comprehensive learning plan and strengthening their math skills, they will also have fun! Ultimately, our goal is to not only make math make sense, but to also make math enjoyable.

To learn more about our summer curriculum, or to enroll your child at our Greensboro math tutoring center this summer, give us a call at (336) 855-5558.