You don't want your children going down this slide...

Photo credit: clover_1 on flickr

Use it or lose it!  Children who do not read during the summer are at risk of losing the skills and knowledge they worked so hard to obtain during the course of the school year. Researchers refer to this as the "summer slide". It is estimated that school summer breaks will cause the average student to lose up to one month of instruction.  Consider the following research, presented by the National Summer Learning Association. :

• All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer (White, 1906; Heyns, 1978; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Cooper, 1996; Downey et al, 2004).
• Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months. Low-income students also lose more than two months in reading achievement, despite the fact that their middle-class peers make slight gains (Cooper, 1996).
• More than half of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities. As a result, low-income youth are less likely to graduate from high school or enter college (Alexander et al, 2007).
• Parents consistently cite summer as the most difficult time to ensure that their children have productive things to do (Duffett et al, 2004).

Learn more about the importance of summer reading here.

Participating in the Dig into Reading program at the library is a great way to keep your children reading, active and engaged - and prevent them from going down the Summer Slide!