by TutorUp | Jul 15, 2024 | Online Tutoring
As summer rolls around, it’s easy to picture your kids kicking back, enjoying some well-deserved time away from the classroom. But here’s something that might catch your attention: while summer is a break from school, it’s also a time when a lot of what they’ve learned can slip away. Research shows that students can lose up to two months’ worth of reading and math skills over the summer if they don’t stay engaged. That’s not just a small hiccup—it’s a gap that teachers often spend four to six weeks reteaching when the new school year starts. For parents like you, who want your child to head into the next grade ready to tackle what’s ahead, summer tutoring might be the game-changer you’re looking for.
Let’s talk about that loss for a moment. Studies, like those from the National Summer Learning Association, back this up: about 30% of the progress kids make during the school year can vanish over those warm, unstructured months. It’s often called the “summer slide,” and it’s especially tough on students who are already playing catch-up. Maybe your child struggled with fractions last year, or perhaps reading still feels like a mountain to climb. Without some reinforcement, those weak spots don’t just stay weak—they can get worse. Summer tutoring steps in here, offering a way to not only hold onto what they’ve learned but also close those gaps before they widen.
What’s great about summer tutoring is how it can be tailored to your child’s needs. Unlike the school year, where teachers are juggling a whole classroom, a tutor can zoom in on exactly what your kid needs help with. Data from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University shows that high-impact tutoring—think frequent, focused sessions—can help students gain back half a year to a full year of learning in subjects like math and reading. That’s huge, especially if your child fell behind during a rocky school year or just needs a boost to feel confident walking into the next one. Imagine your third-grader finally nailing those multiplication tables or your middle schooler smoothing out their essay-writing skills—all before the first bell rings in the fall.
The flexibility of summer also makes this doable for busy families. With no homework or after-school activities crowding the schedule, you can fit tutoring around camps or vacations. And here’s a stat that might surprise you: a 2020 review of nearly 100 tutoring programs found that intensive tutoring was particularly effective for younger kids in reading and for slightly older ones in math. So whether your child is seven or twelve, there’s evidence this can work. It’s not about cramming their summer with busywork—it’s about targeted support that sets them up to start the year strong.
Think about September for a second. Kids who’ve had some summer tutoring don’t just show up refreshed—they show up prepared. They’re not the ones scrambling to remember what a decimal is or how to sound out tricky words while the teacher moves on to new material. Instead, they’re ready to build on what they already know. Research from the U.S. Department of Education highlights that students who get this kind of support are better positioned to keep pace as the year progresses, especially if they’ve had a tough time before. For you, that means less stress watching them struggle and more pride seeing them thrive.
If your child’s had a bumpy road with school—or even if they’re doing okay but could use a little edge—summer tutoring could be the bridge to a smoother next year. It’s an investment in keeping their skills sharp and giving them a head start. By the time fall hits, you might just find they’re not only caught up but actually excited to take on what’s next. And as a parent, isn’t that the kind of confidence you want them to carry into the classroom?
by TutorUp | Jul 3, 2023 | Online Tutoring
Summer slump learning loss is real
Taking a break from school can be a good thing for students, especially if the prior school year was a tough one. However, a three-month break from academic activity has a proven negative effect. By some measurements, children lose an average of 1 month and up to 2 months of learning in the time off during the summer.
Researchers from the University of Missouri first began measuring math computation and spelling skills in a 1996 study where they wanted to determine the effect of having two to three months off from learning in the summer. They amalgamated the results of 39 different studies. The results were compelling. “The meta-analysis indicated that the summer loss equaled about one month on a grade-level equivalent scale, or one tenth of a standard deviation relative to spring test scores. The effect of summer break was more detrimental for math than for reading and most detrimental for math computation and spelling.”
More recently, and following pandemic learning loss, studies have found that students in grades 1-8 lose 17% to 34% of the prior year’s learning over summer break. And significantly, the study showed that kids who fall behind one summer, tend to stay behind and even widen the gap as time goes on.
“Math, reading and history scores from the past three years show that students learned far less during the pandemic than was typical in previous years. By the spring of 2022, according to our calculations, the average student was half a year behind in math and a third of a year behind in reading,” according to Dr. Tom Kane, professor education and economics at Harvard, and Dr. Sean Reardon, professor of education and sociology at Stanford. When you add summer learning loss to the picture, it becomes more alarming.
Current statistics about summer slide:
- Kids in grades 3-5 lose about 20% of their school year gains in reading and 27% of their gains in math. (Source: Scholastic)
- Students lose about a month’s worth of learning on average over the summer. (Source: Sage Journals)
- In the summer between fifth and sixth grade, 84% of students experience summer slide in math. (Source: Kappan)
- The more kids learn during the school year, the more they’re likely to lose over the summer. (Source: Kappan)
- It can take 2 months in the fall for students to recover from summer learning loss
Things you can do to help mitigate summer learning loss:
- Set aside 30 minutes per day for some type of academic activity
- Participate in a summer reading program
- Make regular visits to the library
- Play games that reinforce reading and math skills
- Create learning experiences by visiting museums, zoos, and other nature experiences
- Keep plenty of art supplies on hand and encourage creativity
- Limit screen time
Consider summer tutoring
Your child might benefit from tutoring over the summer, even if it’s just a couple of 30-minute sessions per week. This is particularly true in subjects that your child may have struggled with during the previous school year. Teachers say that it takes a month or more in the fall, just trying to get students back to the skill levels they had before summer break. Spending some time one-on-one with a certified, classroom-experienced teacher over the summer, could be a total game-changer for your child. TutorUp can help.
by TutorUp | Jun 3, 2022 | Online Tutoring
The 2022 Summer School Picture
Millions of students enroll in summer school each year for a variety of reasons. Some students retake courses needed for graduation, some take courses for academic acceleration and enrichment, and some take career prep or college prep courses. In addition to K-12 programs, high school and middle school students can take advantage of summer programs offered by more than 97% of top universities.
In 2019, there were about 3.3 million students enrolled in summer school in the U.S., and in 2020, the latest year figures were available, that number increased to 3.4 million. According to a report on summer school by ThinkImpact, continued attendance in summer school could result in up to 25% improvement in mathematics, and up to 23% improvement in language capabilities. And 2022 should see growth as well “As there is an increased focus and significance placed on education, summer school has enjoyed a resurgence.”
The Effect of Summer School
As ThinkImpact reports, “Research has shown that students at every stage can benefit from summer school” and enrolling students in a grade level lower than the grade they just completed seems to have a marked positive impact.
The positive impact of summer school persists, even after the following school year. Students are generally showing an advantage of one grade level in post-tests over their peers, and even “one year later, there was a 13% benefit for students” in the subject they took in summer school.
Summer school during the pandemic, including online summer school, helped prevent loss of 50% of math gains and 30% of reading gains.
Blending Vacation with Learning
For most students, summer means fun and freedom and no more studying or homework. Parents need to keep that in mind, and weigh the benefits of summer learning with the benefits of having time off. Since most summer school programs are short duration, and typically don’t require daily attendance or long hours, it’s relatively easy to combine summer fun with summer learning.
The “summer slide” is a known phenomenon that impacts students primarily in math and reading. Typically, students lose an average of two months of reading skills and 2.6 months of math skills over the summer. Once they return to school in the fall, it can take weeks if not months to relearn and get caught back up to where they were at the beginning of summer.
This is one reason many parents choose to incorporate some kind of summer learning for their kids.
Summer Tutoring Online
If you’re planning to enroll your student in a summer learning program, you may find that a little one-on-one personalized tutoring support will help boost that learning. Or if your student just needs a couple of hours a week of tutoring without the need to enroll in a formal summer program, TutorUp has solutions for your needs. All of our tutors are certified, classroom-experienced teachers and as such, they have more availability over the summer than during the school year. We can match your student with the perfect tutor to help them sail through a summer school program, or just help them avoid the annual summer slump. Click here to let us know what you’re looking for.
by TutorUp | Apr 29, 2022 | Online Tutoring, Parents and Home
Is Summer Learning Loss Real?
A research study in the American Educational Research Journal found that “the average student loses 17-34% of the prior year’s learning gains during summer break, as well as that students who lose ground in one summer are more likely to also lose ground in subsequent summers.” They also found that there was more substantial loss in math and reading. Read more about summer learning loss here from the Institute of Multi-Sensory Education.
How to Address Summer Learning Loss
- Summer learning programs can be effective in helping prevent summer learning loss and closing achievement gaps.
- Having access to books and encouraging summer reading is important in helping students gain in reading achievement, comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.
- Journaling over the summer is a great way to not only capture memories, but also provide writing practice for students. Encouraging kids to write in their journal daily keeps their literacy skills fresh.
- Another way to keep writing skills fresh is to encourage letter writing with a pen pal or distant relative.
- For more targeted academic support, summer tutoring is very effective in helping students keep current and improve math and reading skills.
Summer Tutoring with TutorUp
All of our tutors are certified teachers and have a lot of flexibility in their summer schedules. If you’re interested in providing some weekly academic support for your student this summer, we have lots of options for you.
by TutorUp | Jun 16, 2021 | Parents and Home
Statistics show that 79% of schools are offering online summer school classes in the wake of the pandemic. The percentage of students who enroll in summer school has been steadily increasing every year since they started tracking it in 1985, and the percentage of high school students enrolled is now approaching 50%.
Something that you may not be aware of is that more than 97% of top universities offer summer programs for high school students, and some even offer programs for middle school children.
In addition, online summer school during the pandemic can help to prevent loss of 50% of math gains and prevent 30% of loss in reading gains.
Further, students in all grades can benefit from summer school, not just high schoolers. Kindergarteners and first graders who attended summer school outperformed their peers. And the benefits from attending summer school persist. One year later, there is still a 13% benefit for students in the subject they studied in summer school.
What if it’s too late to enroll in summer school?
Some schools have already launched their summer school programs, and if you didn’t get signed up, you may have missed the window of opportunity. And there’s also a good chance that the summer programs near you were filled up, and your child may be on a waiting list and has missed out.
If either of these scenarios apply to your student, you can still provide a learning experience that will have a positive impact on your student’s academic performance by signing up for some online tutoring this summer. Learning loss from COVID is evident across the country. Summer learning loss just compounds the problem. So to make sure your student gets an academic boost instead of an academic loss, dedicating a bit of summer vacation time to tutoring is a great idea.
Tutoring is flexible
Summer school has a set schedule, even when it’s presented in an online format. Tutoring, on the other hand, is completely flexible to fit your family’s schedule. Are you going to be out of town for a while? Do you have other schedule conflicts that make summer school impossible? Or do you just want your student to spend a couple of hours each week on educational activities so they’re not giving up their whole vacation on “school stuff”? Schedule tutoring when it’s convenient for your family.
Does your student need some one-on-one help with summer school?
Summer tutoring is the perfect support for the student who is enrolled in summer school and may be having a bit of difficulty keeping up with the accelerated pace. In order to cover material that normally gets covered in a full semester, summer school courses, especially at the high school level, can be a real challenge. One-on-one tutoring, even just an hour or two per week, can help your student keep up with summer school demands.
TutorUp offers 30-minute tutoring sessions
You can purchase tutoring sessions this summer that are 30 minutes long, or combine sessions to get an hour of tutoring, or 90 minutes… whatever works. All of our tutors are certified, experienced, background-checked classroom teachers who know how to connect with students. Just type in your contact info below so we can chat with you about your child’s specific needs, or give us a call to find out how you can get your student learning on your schedule and your budget this summer.
