Why!? It's the summer!!
Aren't we supposed to relax?
Whether at our learning camps or somewhere else, it is vital that students keep their brain active this summer!
Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer. In fact, all young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. (White 1906; Heyns 1978; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Downey et aI 2004)
High Quality Summer Programs (whether ours or someone else's) not only can boost student confidence, but help prepare students for next year!
Further studies have shown that most students lose about two months of grade-level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months. (Cooper, 1996) Additionally teachers report that they typically spend between 4 to 6 weeks re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer.
Adding all of that lost time up reveals that it equates to roughly 3 months wasted! That's 1/4 of a year! Over the span of the typical high school graduate, it's comparable to 3 years of learning opportunities lost!
Several scholars attribute summer learning loss, or the summer slide to something known as the "Faucet Theory". While students are in school, the "faucet" is on for all students to take advantage of, however, while away for the summer, the "faucet" is only on for those who choose to continue learning in some form of educational activity.
The brain is like a muscle - push it, train it and make it work hard. The harder you push it now, the stronger it will become for you later, and just like a muscle - it will atrophy without use!