School is out for a lot of youngsters in Los Angeles, and many parents might be wondering how they can make sure their children keep learning during the summer months.
Recent studies have indicated that summer fun leads many children to lose much of the knowledge they gain over the course of the previous school year. Researchers at the Baltimore, Maryland-based Johns Hopkins Center for Summer Learning say that it’s bound to happen unless youngsters engage in some educational activities during their summer breaks. Otherwise children can lose recently learned mathematical computation skills, and also see their reading skills regress, researchers say.
Cathy Malone, a veteran special education teacher and diagnostician, has considered Johns Hopkins’ recent research and her own experience in coming up with the following tips on summer learning.
Malone, who currently serves on the faculty of the University of Phoenix—which operates campuses across the U.S. geared toward working adults—says parents should consider the following steps this summer:
• Make a list of books for your children to read—and then head to the library to find them.
• Take the time to find out what’s going on at your local library. Many libraries have summer reading programs with fun themes and incentives for the number of books read.
• Have a morning or evening “read aloud time,” with everyone in the family taking turns.
• Play word games such as Scrabble, Boggle and Quiddler, or number puzzles such as Sudoku.
• Have your children keep a journal while traveling.
• Use the newspaper to find a new word to learn each day.
• Get to work in the kitchen making some favorite recipes or bread. Let your children figure out measurements, or determine the sequence of steps, the time it takes for cooking a dish, etc.
• Use real life situations to solve math problems—change at the grocery store, gas at the pump, estimating tax, or exchanging currency.
• Have your children add and subtract license plate numbers while riding in the car.
