After a COVID year and as summer begins, put an end to your child’s learning loss

Kids are human sponges. They absorb information from everywhere. But just like sponges, if left unattended, there can be leakage. That’s a crude way of explaining what happens to many children over the summer months when they stop their learning and academic activities and lose much of what they’ve taken in previously. The result is often a regression or slide before they reenter school in the fall.

A year and a half of COVID-19 added to the mix, and that slide can turn into a freefall before the planned full-scale return to school in Miami-Dade. Even when children do get back to in-person schooling, their adjustment to the real world, interaction with classmates and a host of other social-emotional wellness issues makes concentrating on learning more difficult than ever. That means parents and caregivers need to be on top of their game to get things started before any further loss can happen.

Keep learning from the start

After an unprecedented school year like the one we’ve had, it’s natural for children and their parents to feel as if they need a break. The truth is we all do. But that shouldn’t mean a break from learning. Find ways to have your children flex their reading, math and science muscles as soon as the summer starts. Giving them a week or two to “do nothing” might seem like a fair deal, but it will only make getting them back to learning more difficult.

That’s not to say you need to force them to read a book a week or complete math worksheets starting from the get-go. Instead, incorporate learning into your daily and weekly activities depending on the age of your children. You can do things as simple as planning weekly trips to the library to find and read books or magazines, having them count and organize ingredients when preparing meals or making visits to the park, grocery store and gas station as a purposeful way of learning by counting objects, reading ingredients and calculating volumes.

To learn how everyday activities can aid in learning, especially for young children, visit Ready, Set, Go Miami! (readysetgomiami.com) and sign up for workshops that teach parents how to optimize regular daily routines for kids to squeeze the most out of learning for them.

Get your kids into active learning

Keeping your kids’ minds sharp in the summer should not come at the cost of them not enjoying themselves, and it doesn’t have to. There are so many activities that are fun and educational to participate in together. All that is required is a little planning and effort. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Many parents still have to work, and their kids are often left without direction. That’s where summer camps and planned activities can help the most.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), in partnership with The Children’s Trust, launched the Summer 305 Adventure to make free summer camps accessible to tens of thousands of children who might not ordinarily join a summer camp and are in great danger of learning loss. As part of the initiative, M-DCPS teachers will visit the camps regularly to provide tutoring. Visit summer305.dadeschools.net or www.TheChildrensTrust.org/SummerCamps for more information on how to sign up for one or more of hundreds of camps in different areas and with different themes.

If you can do nothing else but get your kids to read in the summer, that might be enough. But getting them to pick up a book can be quite the challenge. Less so, however, if their reading is part of the Summer Battle of the Books. The program provides free books (hard copies or downloads) to registered children and then has them participate in fun activities related to the books. They will be visited by special guests from the NBA and Miami Hurricanes to encourage them on their reading adventure. On July 22, the program ends with a virtual Book Battle with winners in different categories getting prizes.

Visit StayHome.Miami for information and to register.

This piece was contributed by Kathleen Dexter, M.S.W., who is a program manager for The Children’s Trust and a licensed clinical social worker with experience in the design and implementation of child and family services programs. For more information, visit thechildrenstrust.org.