3 Tips to Fight the “Summer Slide”
You’ve heard about it, you’ve likely witnessed it in students, and you more than likely experienced it when you were young and still in school. As much as students (and teachers) love summer vacation, it comes with a downside: the “summer slide” (otherwise known as the “summer slump”), or the backslide in student learning that happens after being out of school for a long period of time, which means teachers may need to cover old material to refresh students before they can progress to new lessons. But it’s not inevitable. We’ve highlighted several ways K–12 educators can help fight that summer slide and help their students start off on the right foot when fall rolls around. 1. Start a Summer Reading Program Many public libraries host summer reading programs, but that doesn’t mean you can’t “host” your own! Have your students pick two or three grade-level-appropriate books to finish over summer break and prepare a five-minute presentation highlighting what they liked about them. For students interested in the classics, you could have them pick one of the full-text eBook classic literary works they can find in Bloom’s Literature for their summer reading. Bloom’s Literature also features a wide range of