<p>
[quote]
Research by Johns Hopkins and others has shown that all students lose over two months of mathematical computation skills over the summer months. Low-income children experience much greater summer learning losses in reading than their higher income peers contributing to the growth of the achievement gap. For example, by the end of fifth-grade, low-income children fall more than two years behind their middle-income peers in verbal achievement as a direct result of summer learning differences. In addition to having an adverse impact on learning, summer vacation also has negative effects on the health and nutrition of many young people. On average, only one in five children across the country who receive free and low-cost school lunches participate in federal nutrition programs during the summer.
[/quote]
What actions will you be taking to help your children avoid the summer slide?</p>
<p>He'll be doing a LOT of AP Calculus summer work. And taking a college physics class. Starting in middle school our kids have summer math homework, which I tried to spread out over the summer to avoid this problem.</p>
<p>Making her eat tuna fish and talking to her a lot using big words? Sorry. No deep need to be facetious. Actually going to take a deep breath and once again think about what my birth privilege has brought me and my kids.</p>
<p>well my daughter has been doing Kumon, but it isn't helping that much so
I have been looking for a replacement if it doesn't cost too much. Kumon is $100 a month for once a week, we are looking at another program that is more expensive but not that much more time.</p>
<p>It makes sense that those in poverty would have a rougher time during the summer months, when the special school programs end. I've never thought of it. Thanks for sharing that blurb. It's something to think about. </p>
<p>My D (7), who needs extra enrichment for reading, will be doing a Wilson program this summer. She's certainly "at risk" for summer slide.</p>
<p>My S will be traveling and working. Whatever summer slide he encounters as a result is well worth the sacrifice in exchange for time spent immersed in another culture. Life is bigger than books and classrooms....thank goodness.</p>
<p>Our school system seems to address the summer slide issue with review units during the first few weeks of school in the elementary and middle grades. There's a fair amount of summer work assigned for AP classes once the kids get to high school.</p>
<p>Summertime is academic downtime for us. My kids love to read and do a lot of that, always choosing their own books. They like Stephen King, James Patterson, and all that chick lit stuff, but they've read Tolkien, Jane Austen, and Scott Fitzgerald on their own, too. A program to prevent brain drain, especially in math, wouldn't be very popular (or enforceable) around here. Though the older two do have jobs that involve making change. ;)</p>
<p>When I was at my food co-op distribution yesterday, there was a poster on the wall for the Salvation Army summer day camps. For $10/week, the kids get a hot lunch, snacks, supervised play and a chance to swim in the pool every week day. I know that $2 per day is not free, but it does offer some help on the nutrition front, at least. I believe the SA gives "scholarships" to camp as well.</p>
<p>But, on a more serious note, does anyone miss the the connection to block scheduling, where math is taught in the first semester, but not in the second? Thus, students go from late Jan to Sep with no math...</p>
<p>OP:</p>
<p>pls post a citation if you have it. I'd love to show it the the educational 'professionals' around here.</p>
<p>apparently the Picts( naked blue warriors) at Renn Fayre this year didn't have a slip & slide to clean themselves off with , so they just went and put on t-shirts :)</p>
<p>( we have block scheduling- but all students have all of their classes all year. you just don't have them every day- )</p>
<p>I am taking physics summer school for credit at my HS and interning in City Hall and attending JSA Summer School in Georgetown. Soo...I won't be falling too far behind.</p>
<p>in our neck of hte woods, we call your schedule a 'modified' or 'alternating' block, i.e., classes on alternating days, but all classes all year. </p>
<p>A more traditional block is 3-4 classes first semester, and then 3-4 different classes second semester. I was addressing my point to this type of block.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to work as a tutor this summer. I'll be useful and keep my brain active--I won't be learning new things, and I won't be refreshing my calculus skills, but it should keep me from forgetting too much, and I'll have a chance to review all that math from 3 years ago...</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at a community college and I will be taking 12 credits in classes this summer- had to save up 1,500 for it.</p>
<p>The primary reasons for doing this lie in the past: I get bored within the first week of summer, I have been out of school since the 14th and I'm already waiting for classes to start. Also, if I do more classes now, I can transfer earlier- my CC is kind of a drag- easy and boring.</p>
<p>I have told my Principal that I would be willing to come back to school two weeks earlier to run an activities based math camp.... to help the middle school students ease back into school at that point when they are usually bored with summer. Hopefully she can find a space and a little funding for supplies.</p>
<p><-- Junior in HS
I am working with a mentor on a project at NRL(Naval Research Laboratory) in D.C.</p>
<p>Pay is bad($1500 stipend for 2 months), commute is worse. But its through a Science & Engineering Apprenticeship Program and is competitive. Hopefully, my brain will be stimulated as I explore the physics of free surfaces. </p>
<p>Also I hope to learn economics just for fun and start reading books in general. I haven't read a book out of choice since 8th grade. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Confidential, Re economics: start with Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlett. Follow up with Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. Move on with Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. I would not recommend trying to wade through a college textbook.<br>
It is harder to suggest general reading, not knowing what you like, but overall
I would recommend reading any of the classics which have not surfaced in your school curriculum: Homer, Plato, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Milton, Shakespeare, Dante, Austin, Flaubert, Dickens, Goethe, etc. You can go on and on and on!</p>
<p>To get back on topic, I think your internship is well worth the opportunity cost of a better paying summer job (there's that pesky economics coming out!). My rising senior S will be in the Heat Transfer Lab at JHU, getting paid a miserly sum, which is a huge increase from last summer, when he worked there as a volunteer. Maybe you two could get together, it sounds like you have common interests. PM me.</p>