You might think about summer school as a requirement for students who don’t do well during the previous academic year. But summer school can be so much more!
Where you may be conditioned to thinking about it as a place to drop off your child for extra skills work, summer school doesn’t have to be boring, long, or only for those who are behind. Let’s explore the benefits of doing some school review in the summer, the kinds of students it works for most, and how you can implement it at home, even if you’re not an educator.
Benefits of Summer Review
Whether you do summer review in every subject or just a few, here are the summer stats about students who don’t do any review at all.
Allison Crean Davis, the vice president for education studies at Westat and director of the National Summer Learning and Enrichment Study published in 2024, said, “There’s a wealth of data showing that kids who do not have opportunities for enrichment programming over the summer tend to slip in their academic skills, whereas kids that have access to different learning Âopportunities and enrichment Âopportunities, such as travel and camps, come back to school retaining more of their learning from the prior year.”
Another study says “more than nine in 10 K-12 superintendants say summer programs are very important…to reaching their district goals.” Even more pressing is that the overwhelming majority believe that summer learning is crucial for maintaining or growing students’ academic skills.
Essentially, summer work mitigates the summer slide you hear so much about.
Summer review doesn’t have to be for long periods of time; in fact, it’s often more effective in short spurts over the course of the summer and in a variety of methods: camps, some work at home, and travel are all great ways to invest in summer enrichment.
While some learning opportunities may be cost-prohibitive, not all are. So keep reading to learn 7 ways to stimulate summer enrichment without a high price tag.
For Which Students Does Summer School Work?
The short answer? All of them.
Yes, even students who are ahead in school can benefit from summer review. Most school officials and teachers agree that summer review can look like so many things: reading a few novels by the pool, getting extra books for young readers to explore during their quiet room time, or playing hopscotch under the sprinkler while adding up the numbers as they go.
Summer school does not have to be boring!
7 Not-Boring Ways to Implement Summer Learning at Home
Whether you work outside the home, have plans to travel this summer, or you’re staying put with little on the calendar, here are some ideas for ways to un-boring your summer reviews.
1. Make a library scavenger hunt.
Using a template like this helps, but even if you create your own using a website like Canva, you can help steer your child to the kinds of books you’d like — while leaving a few for him or her to choose that appeal to his or her interests and tendencies.
2. Participate in friend swaps.
Exchange children with a friend one day a month (or more often if you have that kind of margin). Even teens can do this! (What better way to let them be with friends and review?!)
Here’s how it works: Choose a day to host your child and another friend’s child. On that day, agree to some learning opportunities that would benefit both of your children. It could be a simple trip to the library, a board game that involves number sense, or for teens, you might give them 30 minutes to research a topic and prepare a speed-presentation. They have to record their presentation on their phones and send it to you and their parent to show what they learned. After that, the time they have left can be unstructured.
3. Take a day trip.
It’s easy to put all your “eggs in one basket,” so to speak, with summer travel. Planning that vacation for weeks ahead of time can weary even the most plan-ahead parents. But what about the oft-neglected day trip?
Research your area within a 2-hour drive. What historical sites, scientific discoveries or interesting inventions have come about in or around where you live? Taking all the kids to see the site(s), learning about why the sites were significant, is a great way to take part in active learning.
4. Explore online. Remember the C-word when we all spent time in lockdown? Well, while you might not want to turn back time, you can use some of the tools you discovered back then for online learning. There are great science, geography and math skills review websites that make learning fun. Set a timer for 30 minutes three days a week, and let your child choose one while you choose the other two days what he’ll spend that online time doing.
Check with your child’s teacher for their suggestions, too. Writing a quick email asking for their ideas takes less than five minutes, but it will save you tons of time researching.
5. Check with outdoor learning centers near you.
Many of us are fortunate to have state and national parks nearby. Other ideas are nature centers, trail systems, science centers or 4-H clubs. You can let your child try out a camp, or many of them offer one-day workshops throughout the summer.
6. Ask your child. Talk to your child about something they want to add to their skill set this summer. You will have a much higher success rate whenever you can get student buy-in. While many won’t tell you they’d like to “up their game” in pre-algebra, they may surprise you.
Don’t discount comments like, “I want to learn how to crochet,” or “I’d love to learn how to play piano.” These have academic components in them, such as measuring how much yarn they need for a pattern or learning musical scales. Enrolling them in a class or letting them try it out a friend’s house — ideally, who has a piano already! — is a great way to save on investment before you know if it’s an interest that will stick.
7. Ask your school librarian, your child’s teacher, or your child’s tutor for ideas. Professionals who work with kids are usually incredibly creative, and they have a vested interest in students maximizing their summer learning.
So if your child’s school does not offer summer learning programs, we encourage you to ask! While they may not always have the staff to administer their own, they usually keep recommendations on hand. Learnwell offers summer enrichment camps to help students explore interests and learn simultaneously!
Bookstores may also be a good resource. A local bookstore near Learnwell just announced a bookshop BINGO board. You can create your own by making a simple BINGO board for traveling with ideas like, “Read for 20 minutes by the pool,” “Read a mystery,” and “Read a long-form article online.” Teens can jump in to help you make their own, too. Let them be creative and have fun with it!
If you’d like to test drive a nontraditional way to educate your child, look at Learnwell! We still have a few spots left in our enrollment for the next school year. Contact our admissions department for details.