Dive Brief:
- Summer programs that prepare students for starting kindergarten have grown, appearing in cities nationwide, Chalkbeat reports.
- In some cases, parents also attend, picking up tools to help support their children with skills ranging from recognizing shapes to holding a pencil.
- The movement is part of a trend where summertime is seen not just as a break, but as a time for continued learning.
Dive Insight:
Summer learning loss is of concern to both educators and parents, spurring ongoing educational programing in the warmer months. The goal is to try and keep students from sliding back when the school year ends. But are these boot camps and other efforts effective?
The RAND Corporation took a look at two years of data from a voluntary five-to-six-week summer math and English language arts program by The Wallace Foundation. The organization had low-income elementary school students agree to attend the program for two years, and findings showed that student achievement increased — as long as they continued to attend.
Students don’t necessarily need to attend daily classes. A 2017 report on summer learning loss from The Brookings Institute showed that text messages sent daily to parents of 3rd- and 4th-graders with tips on how to improve summer reading also helped to boost reading scores.
Some intervention, then, can be helpful — as long as educators, parents and students commit and follow through.
