Summer Learning Loss Happens, but Kids Quickly Recover

Summer has arrived. For kids, this might mean freedom from schoolwork. But for parents, it can also mean the summer care scramble—the stressful (and expensive) need for working parents to piece together childcare for the months in which school isn’t in session.

The scramble for some parents is also about the fear that their kids may fall behind academically. The concern, which is referred to as summer learning loss or the summer slide, is that kids will forget some of what they had learned in the school year during the summer. For these parents, summertime is about making sure that this doesn’t happen and potentially even that their kids get a leg up going into the next school year. The scramble can start in the dead of winter, refreshing registration screens to get their children into specific camps that promise to bolster school-year education. It can be more competitive than getting a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert.

But should parents worry about the summer slide? This fear has become more urgent because of significant drops in student achievement during the COVID pandemic, but the research hasn’t always given a clear answer. When one of us (Kuhfeld) and other researchers started looking into summer learning loss, we found a few consistent takeaways.

On supporting science journalism

If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

The bottom line: Yes, a lot of kids do slide, and some do so quite a bit. Yet most catch up pretty quickly when the school year starts again. Still, there are ways to lessen learning loss. All kids are different, but here are a few general tips on finding the balance between the freedom of summer and the desire to retain the knowledge they’ve gained over the school year.

First, a little background: Test scores do flatten or drop on average during summer, typically with larger drops in math than in reading. If you stop practicing a skill (particularly a procedural one such as math), you can easily forget how to do parts of it. What is less certain is the size of those score drops. According to some studies, it’s a drop in the bucket. In other studies, students have lost much of the gains they had made in the previous school year. For example, in one study, students lost, on average, up to a third of what they had gained in mathematics during the year.

But according to that same study, only about half of students had test score drops after summer, while the other half actually made learning gains over summer break. Test score changes after summer vary across students quite a lot. Contrary to expectations, summer break does not seem to contribute meaningfully to widening inequality in test score gaps across poverty levels. Because we have very little national data on the various activities that children participate in during the summer, we still have only a limited understanding of which types of activities can mitigate the summer slide.

Most students quickly bounce back academically when school returns in the fall. Studies that follow students’ test scores across multiple years consistently report drops or flattening scores in the summer, but this is followed by gains resuming in the next school year. Keep in mind that 90 percent of teachers report spending at least the first three weeks of the school year reviewing material from the prior year before turning to new material.

Given all of this, it’s important to remember that many of these studies look at overall patterns across thousands of students, and your child’s academic circumstances are unique, with a variety of factors weighing in. That means there is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to what may be best for your child. Here are some things to consider when deciding how to spend the summer months:

Make a plan. Before the end of the school year, check in with your child’s teacher(s) about their progress and potential weaknesses. If possible, get recommendations for age-appropriate books or activities to work on.

Set goals. Goal setting is an effective way to drive motivation and achievement. The goals don’t need to be Herculean in scope. Something as simple as reading a set number of pages per day or finishing a certain number of books by the end of summer can be enough.

Use the library. Many libraries offer summer reading challenges to motivate kids to keep reading during the summer. Beyond just books, families can access free snacks and meals through the SUN Meals program, one of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Nutrition Programs for Kids, at many libraries and other community sites during the summer, which can motivate more frequent visits.

Add in fun. Summer learning is about a lot more than just academic skills. Both structured activities, such as camps, and unstructured activities, such as playing outside or participating in sports, can help build resilience and promote social-emotional development.

Ultimately, summer doesn’t have to be a difficult choice between total relaxation and academic boot camp—it can be a thoughtful balance of rest, exploration and growth. By checking in with your child’s teacher, taking advantage of community resources, and staying attuned to your child’s academic and emotional needs, you can make summer a meaningful bridge between school years rather than a setback.