The summertime is the best holiday for most children. The extended break means they have plenty of time to play outside and enjoy quality time with both friends and family. It does, however, also mean that their academic engagement will gradually taper off. Keeping their academic ability up throughout the summer can be quite a task while families inevitably have holidays, visits to see relatives, and other engagements to keep up with over the summer period. So, if you’re looking to keep your children engaged over the summer, what can you do?

The inevitable ‘summer slide’

While the kids are off school, they will inevitably begin what’s known as the ‘summer slide.’ A study as part of the American Education journal reported that 75% of parents had seen a drop in their child’s academic ability over the summer period. When you consider that some 2,000 parents participated in this study, this is quite a substantial number. It has been recommended that in order to prevent this, parents should support their child as much as possible while they are out of school. If you have exams coming up, such as the 11+, you may wish to invest in tutoring and summer school classes to prevent them from falling behind. Places such as Marie Redmond Tuition offer intensive courses to boost their ability over the summer break.

Museums

One way to keep children informed and engaged over the summer is to keep it fun. Going out to museums and interactive centers can help them to build their knowledge. Going out to history and science museums is an effective way of making, what are traditionally feared or resented subjects, fun. Their exhibits are also designed to impart valuable information to children. The more exciting and interactive the day, the more information they are likely to take in.

Encourage creativity

One of the best ways to get children curious about what knowledge and information is out there, is to get them invested in a passion project. Suggest that they paint, write and create and get them researching for more information almost by accident. Encouraging them to write every week will not only help their imagination flourish, but it will also boost their literacy skills. You can offer gentle feedback about their sentence structure and spelling as well as encouraging their creative ideas. Getting them to read more alongside their creative writing will help them to absorb basic literacy skills, too. Going to your local library and getting them to pick the books they’re interested in will not only give them writing ideas, but also make them far more likely to read the book. Read with them, and make time to both sit quietly with each other to read over a few chapters of your new books.

Keeping your child educated over the summertime needn’t be so difficult. By using structured learning, engaging days out and by encouraging creativity, you can help them broaden their skill set. Once they return to school in the fall, they’re less likely to fall behind or feel disadvantaged.

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July 18, 2019