Is preventing the summer slide on your mind? This time of year, I always hear of moms looking for ways to help kids prevent the summer slide. Have your kids experienced the “summer slide” before? They return back to school from summer break and seem to have forgotten everything! It’s super common that after a long break, kids need some time to review and get back on track with learning. For teachers (and homeschool moms) this can be a frustrating time of wanting to move forward but feeling stuck in an extended review. The good news is that you can prevent the summer slide, and even enhance summertime learning, just by spending a few minutes a day engaged in learning activities.

What is the summer slide?

We are a homeschooling family. I love the freedom and flexibility that homeschooling gives us, but at the same time it can feel like a heavy weight on my shoulders to be responsible for guiding the complete education of all my kids. When all my kids were younger and I was juggling babies and toddlers while homeschooling my elementary aged kids, I chose to do homeschool year-round. The year-round schedule relieved me of the pressure getting all the things done every day and helped me to be more relaxed because we used the full calendar year for school. During that time, summer slide wasn’t a thing for us because we never had that long break.

Now that all my kids are older, our family life has changed so much. My kids had several years of public school after my divorce and got very accustomed to the public school schedule of 10 weeks of summer free from schoolwork. As we’ve moved back into homeschooling in the past couple of years we kept firmly to the summer vacation mode in full force, but now that I’m their teacher, I notice that summer slide more than I did in those years that they were in school.

This year’s summer slide prevention plan

In planning for this summer, I decided to create a realistic and easy-to-follow plan for my busy family to help my school-aged kids and teens prevent the summer slide. My priority with this plan was the following:

• minimum daily time investment
• maximum results

In order to accomplish this, we are focusing only on the subjects that are the most common to suffer from the summer slide, math, reading, and writing. They only need to spend 10 minutes a day on each subject. 30 minutes a day total is super easy to accomplish. The goal is consistency.

Math

All of my kids can benefit from math review over the summer, so math is top of the list. I am expecting everyone to spend just 10 minutes a day (Monday-Friday) on math. Obviously, with 5 kids all at different levels this will be different for each one. Two of my kids still struggle with multiplication at the middle school level, and so they will be going back to memorize math facts using skip counting songs and working on multiplication and division review. One child has needed a lot of extra help with pre-algebra through this year and will not be done by the end of the school year, so he will just continue working through is pre-algebra course through the summer. My two highschoolers are preparing to take the SAT and/or ACT and so I will find math practice relevant to helping them prep for those exams.

Reading

I’m a big proponent of raising readers and luckily most of my kids do love reading. A couple are not fans of sitting down with a book, so I encourage them to use audiobooks and let them pick out books on my Audible plan. Our library also has audiobooks. This week I’m going to spend time with each kid to plan what books they will read or listen to over the summer. I’m encouraging them to choose something they will enjoy, whether it be school-related or not. My sole purpose is to help them develop a habit of reading. During the school year I direct their reading with attached lessons, but this summer reading will be purely for pleasure. Also, the 10 minutes is their minimum, but I am going to encourage them to read as much as they want.

Cursive/Journaling

When my kids were younger, I used a program called Cursive First and taught them to write in cursive. There are many reasons that cursive handwriting is good for a child’s development and I felt it was important. Then I got divorced and all my kids went into public school for several years. My older kids, who had learned cursive at home, no longer rememeber how to write in cursive because they were told in school that it was not “allowed.” Seriously! My younger kids just never learned cursive because the schools don’t teach it anymore. So this summer, everyone is learning/re-learning cursive handwriting. I found some inexpensive workbooks on Amazon geared toward pre-teens and teens to help them learn. They will be using this cursive practice in combination with daily journaling.

Weekly Schedule Overview

• Monday – Friday: 10 minutes each of math, reading, and cursive/journaling. Do this before any gaming or T.V.
• Saturday: Free, read if you want to
• Sunday: Free, read if you want to

More ideas to help prevent the summer slide

• Incorporate Learning into Daily Life: For math, involve kids in budgeting, cooking (measuring ingredients), and travel planning (calculating distances and times). For reading, encourage reading signs, menus, and instructions. Ask kids open-ended questions about what they have read lately to encourage a deeper discussion. Any thing they write, have them practive their cursive skills.
• Create a Reward System: Don’t dismiss the power of rewards, even for teens. Small rewards for completing weekly goals can motivate kids. For example, a special treat, an outing, or a family movie night. Brainstorm some ideas together with your kids and make sure to stick to the plan.
• Set Up a Comfortable Learning Space: Encourage them to designate a quiet and comfortable work space for reading and math activities to help them focus better. In our home, this looks could be anywhere: desk, a bed, a lounge chair by the pool.
• Visit the local library: Many libraries have summer reading programs, book clubs, and opportunities for read-alouds. These can be fun and engaging ways to support and encourage a love of reading. Also, encourage kids to read aloud to you or to eachother. You might be surprised how many people enjoys read-alouds, even teens.

By consistently engaging in these activities, kids can maintain and even enhance their reading and math skills over the summer, helping to prevent the summer slide with minimal daily time investment.

What are your plans to help prevent the summer slide for your kids?

Please share your ideas!