[Health]Is Your Child Experiencing Summer Learning Loss? What to Do

• Summer learning loss is the loss of academic skills and knowledge children can experience over the summer break from school.
• Though experts still debate why this happens and the degree to which children are affected, many teachers say it’s a real issue for many students at the beginning of each year.
• Many states offer scholarships for a range of summer programs and activities that can provide learning opportunities and access to other school benefits that may be lost in the summer, including food programs.
• Parents can also help lessen the impact of summer learning loss while kids are at home with regular activities, discussing appropriate current events, or reading for at least 30 minutes a day.

The concept of summer learning loss isn’t new. The original research, released in 1996, compiled data from the 1970s and ’80s and kicked off a decades-long search for answers regarding what really happens to children’s learning over the summer months when school is not in session.

It’s otherwise referred to as the Cooper Analysis, named for lead author Harris Cooper, who went on to write a great deal about his findings. That meta-analysis found that about a month of school-time learning was lost over the summer, with the negative impact increasing as children grow older.

Later research included a 20-year study, spanning 1982 to 2002.

In the years since, researchers have had debated the reasons some students experience learning loss during summer breaks, with some experts pointing to the gaps for children of lower socioeconomic status.

Others have theorized that the learning gap is actually established prior to the age of 5, with those gaps simply enduring and accounting for what researchers have observed when children begin 9th grade.

Others still, such as researcher Paul T. von Hippel, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, have examined the validity of our previously believed conclusions, questioning whether or not summer learning loss is, in fact, a real thing.

But while experts continue to debate why this may occur, many teachers say it does — and there are a number of things parents can do about it.