Summer Learning: Preparing Your Child for Next School Year
Some studies have shown that children digress in their academic progress during summer break. Setting aside some time throughout each week for educational refreshers can help your children close learning gaps and start their new grades in the fall with stronger academic skills.
There are easy ways to encourage summer learning. Preparing your child for next school year will help ease the transition into the next grade. Here are a few ways to incorporate learning into their summer break:
Math Skills
Math is a subject that many young students dread. Here are some games to incorporate into summer learning while teaching them math concepts:
- Beanbag Values —Label buckets or draw chalk circles on the driveway with place values: tens, thousands, and hundreds. Your child will toss beans into the buckets or circles and then count them to see what number they created.
- Math Garden—Draw flowers with chalk, and fill the petals with numbers. Place a number in the middle to multiply, add, subtract, or divide.
- Whack a Ball — To teach your children subtraction, build a whack-a-mole frame from an old box and ping pong balls.
Learn Affixes
You can help your younger children learn multi-syllable words by teaching affixes. Even older children can benefit from this exercise. Using flashcards, write a prefix or suffix onto one side and its meaning on the other.
Have your child guess what they think the affix means before flipping over the card and revealing the meaning. Use a dictionary to help you find a list of affixes and their base words.
Reading Comprehension
If your children have trouble with reading comprehension, summer learning can be advantageous. Encourage them to read with some of their favorite comic books or graphic novels. Visit your local library once a week, and have them choose a book or two to read. You can also find reading comprehension workbooks online.
Some children might benefit from summer school, but there are less-focused ways to implement summer learning. Preparing your child for next school year can be helpful while still leaving them with plenty of time to have fun.
