Summer Learning Loss: How Communities Are Reversing the Trend

 

In her June 19 Summer Learning Day message, First Lady Michelle Obama thanked communities for their summertime investments in youth: “Summer shouldn’t just be a vacation. Instead, it should be a time to get ahead, to branch out and learn new skills, to have new experiences…and for anyone who’s fallen behind, it’s a time to catch up on lessons they missed.”

Research shows that summers without quality learning opportunities put our nation’s youth at risk for falling behind – year after year – in core subjects like math and reading. These losses over the summer are cumulative and contribute significantly to the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income kids.

At the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), we continue to develop and provide resources around strengthening and expanding summer learning programs in communities. With the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, our new report, Accelerating Achievement Through Summer Learning is an essential resource for program providers, education leaders, policymakers, and funders who are making important decisions around summer learning programs as a way to accelerate student achievement.

The report profiles thirteen diverse, replicable summer learning program models and demonstrates how these programs address a variety of K-12 education priorities to deliver strong outcomes for children, youth, and educators. As described in the report, we know a lot about the power of summer learning for students and teachers.

• Summer learning programs can erase early reading deficits. More than 80 percent of low-income youth in this country are not proficient in reading by the end of third grade, making them more than four times as likely to drop out of high school as their peers to who reach this critical benchmark. K-3 summer learning programs have been shown not only to mitigate summer learning losses in reading in the early grades, but to accelerate skill development to get young people up to grade level by third grade.

• High-quality summer learning programs level the college and career playing field. Alarming data on the skilled workforce pipeline and need for remedial coursework in two- and four-year colleges have created a national sense of urgency around work-embedded learning, apprenticeships and college preparation programs, particularly for first-generation attenders. Summer youth employment programs are proving critical to keeping students productively engaged and learning, making meaningful contributions to their community, learning valuable job skills, and exploring potential careers.

• Pre-service and in-service teachers want to make the most of their summers. Quality teaching is consistently linked to successfully closing achievement gaps, but most teachers today have between one and two years of experience. Summer learning programs are an increasingly likely place to find the kinds of pipelines into and through the teaching profession that are working. Offering training, mentorship, leadership, and ownership of their work, community-based programs give new teachers additional time to hone their skills, refine lesson plans, and build deeper relationships with students.

Many kinds of high-quality learning opportunities during the summer can make a difference in stemming learning loss. These opportunities can be voluntary or mandatory, at school, community organizations, or even at home. And we know that “quality” is well-defined and rooted in research. A major study from the RAND Corporation shows that individualized academic instruction, parental involvement, and smaller class sizes are a few components of high-quality programs that produce positive results for young people. The “Best Practices in Summer Learning for Middle and High School Youth” resource from NSLA and the New York Life Foundation is an online guide in text and video offering effective ways of engaging older youth in summer learning.

Across the country, NSLA is seeing many states and cities embrace summer learning as a key strategy in helping their students make measurable academic progress.  We hope that if you haven’t already, you will take the pledge to keep kids learning and place your program on our interactive map. Together, we can ensure that students have the opportunity to engage in meaningful learning all year long.

Rachel Gwaltney is the Director of Policy and Partnerships for the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA). She leads development and implementation of services, projects, and partnerships that strengthen summer learning policy and build capacity of state and national leaders and organizations. Learn more about DCAYA's fantastic partner, the National Summer Learning Association, at www.summerlearning.org. And consider attending their Summer Changes Everything annual conference, October 12-14 in Baltimore, MD.

Makayla's Letter from Camp

Summer learning is often thought of as an “extra,” something nice, but not necessary.  However, more and more research shows that summer learning is critical in a child’s development.

Summer learning prevents the “summer slide”- when kids lose up to three months of what they learned in the previous school year, especially in math.  It allows kids to explore their interests, enhance their skills, and discover alternative ways of learning.

But enough of us policy wonks talking. Reports and research may statistically show why summer learning is important, but 7^th grader Makayla says it best as she takes us through her day at Kid Power, Inc in her Letter from Camp:

Letter from Camp

Hello my name is Makayla and I am a camper at Kid Power summer camp. I am 11 years old and I am going to the 7^th grade. I am going to tell you what Kid Power is all about!

In the morning we sign in and have the choice of going to the gym or going downstairs to eat breakfast. We have three main classes: Math, ELA, and VeggieTime.

In math we use baseball statistics to go over skills like fractions and division. The teams that I follow are the Angles, the Nationals, the Pirates, and the Yankees. Go Nationals!

ELA is also called film class. In film class we watch movies and fill out a storyboard so we can understand the movies better. The storyboards include main characters, supporting characters, setting, and plot.

In VeggieTime, we either tend to our garden or exercise in “VeggieTime Moves”. In the garden we water the plants, identify what’s growing, weeds, and harvest crops. We even got to paint signs, fences, and decorations to make it look beautiful. 

VeggieTime Moves is when we go outside or in the gym and exercise. For example, recently we did “Kid Power Cardio,” which is like Zumba, in the gym. It was a lot of fun!

After the three classes, we go downstairs for lunch. We eat and have some free time during recess. Every Tuesday, the Middle School Camp goes to the pool. The afternoons we don’t go to the pool, we have enrichment. The classes are tennis, cooking, and the Hot Sauce Challenge.

Tennis class is a lot of fun. We go outside to the tennis courts and learn skills like serving, backhands, forehands, and volleys. I played my counselors Miss Katie and Mr. Wendall, but I don’t remember who won. (Probably me!)

During cooking we use plants from the garden to make healthy snacks. In one class we made homemade ranch dressing using sour cream, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and parsley we had grown ourselves.

The Hot Sauce Challenge is where every class makes their own hot sauce to sell. The money that we make selling it is going to be donated to a charity of our choice. We made our own recipe and will market it with our own logo and slogan!

Ever Friday, Middle School Camp goes on a field trip. Some of our recent field trips have been to the beach, a scavenger hunt around the community, and a field day with volunteers from Hanover Research. This Friday we are going to American University for a campus tour and later in camp we are also going to Splash Down Water Park!

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the staff, coordinators, and supporters of Kid Power. I think Kid Power is a very fun and exciting summer camp. I think all kids should join! I will definitely be back next year! 

Kid Power is an expanded learning member of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. Kid Power specializes in youth development by promoting academic advancement, physical and emotional wellness, and positive civic engagement in underserved communities throughout the District. Find out about other expanded and summer learning programs in the DC area by visiting the DCAYA website at www.dc-aya.org. 

For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook,SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

I'm a Good Neighbor

Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia is a prime destination spot for any city dweller wishing to experience the calming atmosphere of fresh water and crisp mountain air. In fact, many affluent DC residents choose to retire in this lake side community only four hours from the city, where traveling by boat is quicker than driving around the nearly 500 mile shoreline. However, the picturesque nature of this vacation spot grows dim mere miles inland from the shore. In the nearby schools, over 70% of the students are on free or reduced lunches and rural poverty can be seen within miles of a lakeside mansion. In 2009, during the summer of my sophomore year in college, I interned for a start-up non-profit initially created to remedy the summer feeding gap for local children. Through the summers, this simple idea grew and expanded into a summer enrichment program serving hundreds of children and bonding together two fiscally diverse populations into a symbiotic community.

Since living in D.C. and working with DCAYA on issues such as expanded learning and summer programming, I have realized that rural and urban poverty may look different on the surface, but in reality share many attributes. One of the most ambitious and successful programs of the SML Good Neighbors Day Camp is Reading Buddies, where a member of the community sits and reads with a child every day for 30 minutes. In the 2010 Assessment Report, SML Good Neighbors found that 88% of the children who participated in the summer enrichment program either maintained or improved their reading scores over the summer. The District has many non-profits that utilize a similar strategy to prevent the summer slide, which researchers have proven most negatively affects low income children. D.C. is also ranked number one in the country for best summer feeding program. Showing summer programming enriches both the minds and bodies of our neighborhood children.

The three summers I spent interning for SML Good Neighbors reinforces my passionate stance for quality summer programming. Just because school lets out for the summer does not mean children’s brains should shut down for three long months. At the same time, summer should be fun. Summer enrichment programs are the best way to provide necessary services such as nutritional meals and educational programming to children in a positive, socially enriching and engaging way so they may grow into productive adults.

The slogan “I’m a Good Neighbor” is displayed on the back of each campers t-shirt. All children need quality, year round supports no matter their family’s income level or geographic location. With summer around the corner, we can all be Good Neighbors by supporting our local summer enrichment programs.

To learn more about SML Good neighbors visit their website or watch this short video about the day camp.

Find a summer enrichment program in D.C. through The Bridge Project DC website. To find a summer feeding program in the District, DC Hunger Solutions provides an easy to use Google map.

Angela Massino is the communications associate at DCAYA. If you would like to stay current on youth issues in the District FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook and check out our website www.dc-aya.org.