NOTE: Debbie
Stellini, Board of Education member, emailed this link recently. It is about
making time for learning during the summer months. It was published by online
by “Edutopia: What works in education,” and the George Lucas foundation and
written by Barbara Dianis, author of the book, “Don’t Count Me Out! A Guide to
Better Grades & Test Scores Pre-K-12.
To
view the complete Edutopia presentation, click here. It includes some excellent
comments and testimonials from educators in the “comments” section of the Web
site page.
Summer
is upon us once again, and parents are beginning to plan for their children's
days without a school schedule. Dreams of days filled with family, friends,
freedom and laughter are in students' heads as they say goodbye to another
school year. However, a nonacademic summer can cause students at every grade
level to digress two to three months in their academic skills. Half an hour to
an hour set aside daily can help students close learning gaps and perform at
higher levels during the upcoming school year. Summer is an ideal time for
students of all ages to strengthen their academic skills while still having
plenty of time left over for summer activities.
1.
Make Time for Learning
Set
aside time for your student to read each day during the summer break -- 15 to
30 minutes per day is all it takes! During the summer, students have more time
to read for enjoyment, which also offers a great opportunity to preserve and
strengthen their reading skills. Your summer activities should include taking
your children or teenagers to the public library to check out books of interest
and/or any summer reading groups they'd like to join.
A
great way to track how much reading your child is doing during the summer months
is a tally on your regular activities calendar. This will help keep the daily
reading time from being overlooked because of other summer activities -- and we
know there are many!
Parents
of students reading below grade level should read with their children in
order to assist with sounding out words they might not be able to decode
themselves. In addition, keep a dictionary or online source close by to help
students figure out those words by using the phonetic spelling provided.
2.
Learn and Practice Affixes
Children
and teens of all grade levels can improve their reading and spelling skills by
learning affixes. Most multi-syllable words include prefixes and suffixes added
to a base word. You can find a list of affixes and their meanings in a
dictionary or in many online sources.
To make this practice appealing, turn it
into a game! Students can create flashcards of prefixes and suffixes. On the
reverse side of each affix flash card, they should write the meaning. All
children love guessing games and can point out what they think the affix means.
You can also use this game to help them learn new vocabulary words.
3.
Develop Math Skills
Though
it may not seem fun to them at the time, working on just three to four math
problems per day during the summer can prevent students' mathematical skills
from getting rusty. They can look at it as a daily challenge that they must
complete, or a daily "to-do" to proudly check off their calendar.
Parents can purchase a math workbook for their child's academic level at most
bookstores. Working on just a few problems daily (or more, if your child enjoys
math) can help students of all ages close the gaps in their math skills,
preserve what they learned during the previous school year, and prepare for the
next.
4.
Improve Reading Comprehension
To
help your children better understand what they're reading, consider offering
them a reading comprehension workbook to work on several minutes daily. These
can be found at teacher supply stores or many online outlets. Students of all
grades and ability levels can benefit scholastically by working with material
that offers self-quizzes and high-interest stories. This practice helps develop
their fact-retaining and inference-making skills.
5.
Review and Build Grammar Skills
Review
the past grade level's grammar concepts, and begin to work on the next school
year's concepts. During the summer, students benefit from weekly reviews or
pre-learning two to four lessons.
Find workbooks geared to their grade or skill
level, and encourage them to check their work using the answer key provided.
Even if they make mistakes on their answers (and who doesn't make mistakes?),
finally filling in the correct answers will reinforce their grammar skills.
6.
Encourage Creative Writing
Creative
writing is a great way to improve your children's written language skills while
giving them a fun and imaginative activity during the summer! Have your student
write a creative paragraph each week. As a parent, you can help by assisting
him or her with choosing a "topic" (such as a family vacation,
special outing or holiday memory) to write a paragraph about.
Students can also
benefit from using a thesaurus and changing several common words to more
interesting words. This will make their writing more interesting while learning
great new words at the same time.
7.
Focus on Specific Skills
Pinpoint
the subjects your child had the most trouble learning the previous school year,
and make sure to fit in some practice in these areas. Summer is an ideal time
to set aside just 15 to 30 minutes a day for helping your student on areas of
difficulty. Again, use every resource available to you!
Parents are not helpless
when it comes to their child's education. Online resources and teacher supply
stores offer a wide variety of learning materials, workbooks, computer games,
and other types of games to reinforce and strengthen scholastic skills.
Students may wish to play learning games with their friends to help make the
time fly by and make learning more fun.
Over the summer, students
and parents who practice the above tips can see great strengthening and
improvement in scholastic skills, and avoid digressing two to three months in
learning. Summer learning can be fun and challenging at the same time.
Students may find learning to be more fun as they become more capable of
meeting scholastic challenges and overcoming any learning weaknesses. By
implementing a summer plan and igniting your child's passion for learning, he
or she can enjoy a renewed sense of academic self-esteem and dignity --
wonderful benefits of learning not to be "counted out."
