Carve Out Time To Learn During Summer Vacation

These resources will help ensure re-entry isn’t difficult for students come August

Summer is here. Children are home and that “summer slide” culprit creeps in, if we let it. In the summer months when children are away from day-to-day formal education in schools, summer slide can be difficult to beat.

Technically called “summer learning loss,” the summer slide is described as students losing a good bit of what they have learned over the course of a school year due to inactive learning over the summer break. This loss results in teachers having to re-teach students previously taught information to catch students up upon their return in the first months of the fall semester. That re-teaching potentially costs an educational system more than $1,500 per student.

This summer, we want to live proactively in our actions toward literacy and learning. Here at the Center for Missional Outreach, we are here to provide resources to help you get over the hump of the summer side!

For parents

• Be with: Choose books to read with your children and books your children can read to you. Ask questions for comprehension. Help them dream in words through story.
• Know: Collaborate with your child’s school and identify projects that are age- and learning-level appropriate, fun and hands-on.
• Agency: Give them freedom to choose books, activities and learning they enjoy.

For students

• Give it a chance: Allow summer to be filled with fun and adventure around learning. This is your time to create and dream.
• Lead: Recruit your friends and create a summer study group filled with all the things you want to learn more about.
• Ask: If you feel overwhelmed, misunderstood or unheard, ask for help and ask to be heard.

For churches

• Listen: Hear the schools in your community. What are their summer needs? How have you partnered in the past? Are there new avenues for deeper relationships?
• Partner: One+One focuses on educational equity and one-on-one mentoring through church-school partnerships. This initiative assists churches in starting or deepening a church-school partnership. For more information, email Jurrita Williams Louie or click here.
• Transform: Project Transformation engages young adults in purposeful leadership and ministry, supports children in holistic development, and connects churches with communities. Project Transformation directly impacts summer learning loss. In this program, 96 percent of children and youth maintain or improve their reading levels over the summer. Click here for more information on becoming a Project Transformation site.

Published: Monday, July 8, 2019