MEMPHIS, Tenn. — In the middle of the summer season, many kids are busy hanging out with friends, forgetting about school, a perfect recipe for the summer slide.
The notorious phenomenon is when students forget some of what they learned during the previous year when they head back to school. Doctors said similar to a muscle, the brain needs to stay active to grow.
“It’s like weightlifting," said Dr. Stewart Burgess, Children’s Museum of Memphis executive director. "If you stop, what happens is you back slide.”
At Memphis-Shelby County Schools, there is not a lot of wiggle room. 27.4% of Memphis-Shelby County Schools third graders met or exceeded expectations on the ELA exam. That compares to 42% of third graders statewide who met or exceeded expectations on that test.
“The amount of summer slide really varies by age, by kid and by circumstances…kids who were learning to read during the COVID years may have a little bit more summer slide in their reading,” said Dr. Jordan Wright, Parallel Learning chief clinical officer.
According to Wright, there is plenty students and parents can do to reduce the slide. It is all about staying engage. Simply going to the library can be huge. Wright recommends letting your child pick out any book they like, even if it is below their reading level, to help them stay engaged.
“As long as they’re engaged with it, really enjoying it, and then you can talk about what they’re reading,” Wright said.
If a student is engaged, they are two and a half times more likely to say they do well or get excellent grades in school according to a Gallup Student Poll.
“Each time they process information from that experience, they’re actually building and refining brain architecture that creates the foundation for all learning to come…kinda set the hook for learning for a lifetime,” said Burgess, “The more fun you have learning, the longer the learning lasts, and the more children want to do it again.”
This engagement is also why local museums, like the Children's Museum of Memphis, are a great place to bring kids over the summer to reduce any slide.
“My boys are staying at it the whole time we’re here," said Codie Norville, mother. "They want to keep coming back.”
“I used to come when I was little…so [my son] gets to do some of the stuff that I did when I was little and that’s just really cool,” said Sydney Nation, Mother.
Writing can be another fun way to keep students engaged over the summer. A fun project from Third Space Learning suggests having your child write a postcard to their teacher about the favorite things they did that week, even if they do not actually send it.