By Cynthia Hunton
We all need a break from this “school year like no other,” but taking a complete break this summer won’t help the fall go any better, especially if you saw your child struggle with at-home or hybrid learning. Here are seven reasons why summer learning will make all the difference in the fall.
● Help Your Child Make up for COVID Learning Loss
The “COVID slide” is the phenomenon that sees children making slow or no progress. The time to worry about the skill gaps and stalled development has passed. Now it’s time to take action.
Research shows children are three months behind schedule, and targeted personalized learning will best help them to catch up. The longer this slide remains unaddressed, the longer it takes to catch up.
● Fill in Skill Gaps While Moving at Your Child’s Pace
In school, teachers need to move quickly, whether your child fully understands or not. Your child is constantly chasing a moving target. Over the summer, your child can move at his or her own pace, fill in gaps and build a strong foundation for the next grade level — or get ahead.
● Head into Big Transition Years with Confidence
Big transition years represent big jumps in responsibility and independence. Get prepared and eliminate the risk of stumbling. Third grade is where the training wheels come off. Your child will go from learning to read to reading to learn. The transitions to middle and high school can be a shock, particularly the rigors of advanced-level reading and writing assignments.
● Get a Jump on Higher-Level Math Skills
If your child is going into higher-level math skills (such as fractions, algebra, or geometry), use the summer to get a jump on them. Address any skill gaps. Then, introduce your child to higher-level math concepts and to thinking in new ways to confidently start the school year.
● Learn How to Tackle Ever-Growing Workloads
We expect kids to be master jugglers of homework, projects, and tests … but kids aren’t born with these skills. Sylvan Learning can help your child become more efficient and effective with time management, organization, study skills, test-taking strategies, research, and note taking. Summer is the perfect time to build these skills for school — and for life.
● Raise ACT or SAT Scores with Summer Help
Summer is the most popular time for SAT or ACT preparation. Your teen can focus on test-taking strategies and fine-tuning skills without all the stresses and distractions of school. Our tutors can pinpoint exactly where to focus to improve scores and review rusty math, writing and reading skills that trouble test takers.
● Avoid Summer Brain Drain … And Head Into the Fall With Momentum
Academic skills are like other skills: Use them or lose them. Normally, most kids lose about two plus months of learning over the summer. Combined with COVID learning loss, summer 2021 will make back-to-school time really difficult.
When you team up with Sylvan Learning this summer, your child will maintain good learning habits, strengthen skills, and prepare for a confident start to a new school year with our personalized learning programs.
Cynthia Hunton has worked for four different Sylvan Learning Centers since 1992 as a tutor, virtual instructor, camp designer and instructor, seminar designer and leader, testing coordinator, director of education, director, and marketing analyst. Learn more at www.sylvanlearning.com.
