Summer Learning Loss: A Big Factor In Student's Education

Making kids go to school during the summer would take a toll on the way they act towards their classmates—especially towards their teachers. Some students would try to act out and get into trouble so they can go home and relax. Others might even go to the extent of getting suspended or expelled so they wouldn't have to go to school at all.

One of the reasons Florida should convert to year-round schooling keeps the learning process going. Text 2 states that students “spend less time reviewing material since students don’t forget everything over the summer.” Because there are multiple

During summer, many students forget what they learned the year before, and teachers must review material done last year. People in year-round schools believe that because of the shorter breaks, teachers have to spend less time reviewing material, and can move forward in their teaching. According to the National Education Association, “one of the main reasons for switching to year-round schools is to improve with student academics.” Although there is no proof, many schools believe a year-round schedule helps improve students academic skills.

Dr. Matthew Lynch from, “Education New” states that, “Students tend to forget a lot during summer break, so a shorter time away from school might increase retention rates” (Watson). Dr.Lynch is saying that having a shorter summer break will tend more to the students, because they will remember and learn more than what a student who has the whole summer off.

Summer break is supposed to be a time of rest and rejuvenation for students. After nine months of hard work and challenging classes, one would think such a long break could do nothing but good for students; however, this is not the best way for young minds to learn. A three month break is far too long for children to go without proper education and supervision. Instead of a long three month break at the end of each school year, why not give students the same number of days off but spread them out more frequently throughout the year? Year-round education is a more efficient, globally competitive, and fair alternative to the traditional nine month school year.

A large portion of the knowledge gained during the last school year is lost over the long idle months and must be retaught for weeks, which wastes a lot of time that could be spent learning new material. This puts students behind in that year’s curriculum, and over many summers, can add up to students being months or years behind where they would be if no learning was lost. There is a solution to this

In his article “Go Year-Round: A Push for True Summer School”, Milton Chen, the executive director of Edutopia, urges readers to use the year-round schooling system. He explains in brief words what the summer vacation was for. “…when farm families needed young people home during the summer months to replace the three R's with the two P's -- plantin' and pickin' " (Chen). He carries on discussing that the problem with the school days is not only the amount, but the schedule of the school day. The curriculum is too tight; neither the students nor the teachers have the time to step away from the books and text and learn from the outside. The students do not have the chance to go into the outside world and observe what is going on in the society that they live in. Additionally, the teachers do not have the chance to decide how their time is spent because it is spent on the strict schedule of the classroom.

In the article,” The Pros and Cons of Year-Round School” it states that by taking summer away that this could help the students have more time to understand the material. In addition, they say that by taking summer away it helps students not to forget anything that they learn the year prior. This shows that students could excel more in school if summer breaks were gone. Also in the article, “The Pros and Cons of Year-Round School” states that the summer break given to the students is too long. The students have almost nothing to do. Some do go on vacations, but not a lot do. This shows that this would be the prime opportunity to get rid of summer, and do a year round school. Sure people believe that this should happen, but is that really the right way to go

There is controversy over whether or not summer break makes kids forget what they should have previously learned. Coming from myself, a senior in high school, summer break is all about forgetting school and living it up during the duration of the break. This causes teachers to have to pretest students to see what all they actually did remember and then go over the same material trying to get them to remember. With year-round schooling you do not have to worry as much about the loss of learning. The longest break with year-round schooling is three weeks. Any break will causes some memory loss but the three month break that regular schooling provides makes the chances not remembering material increase greatly. Year-round schooling, allows the same

Year-round schooling is characterized by its 45-90 day periods of instruction (varying with different multitrack systems) separated by 15-30 day breaks (varying with different multitrack systems) (California Department of Education). There is no current scientific evidence to show that year-round education lessens the amount of material forgotten during the summer (McMillen 68); in fact, this memory loss is maximized as it occurs more frequently as it accompanies the shorter, habitual breaks. Constant breaks can also multiply some of summer’s negative effects. One common issue associated with summer is students’ loss of focus as summer approaches and trouble becoming accustomed to the beginning of the following school year (Worsnop 439). This would be a, though minimized, a recurring difficulty with constant breaks. Furthermore, teachers

Year round school eliminates regression of learning due to extended time off. Having a year round school can reduce what people known as summer learning loss ("The Pros"). Almost every child will experience a decrease in their math over the time of summer break each summer break ("SUMMER LEARNING"). “On an average students lose two months of reading skills over summer” ("SUMMER LEARNING"). After

Do students get bored towards the end of summer? Do students forget what they learned from the school year before? Sarah attends a high school in Indiana, while Hannah goes to a high school in Illinois. Due to the year round schooling (YRS) in Indiana, Sarah has a shortened summer. Sarah receives two-three weeks off of school for winter break, fall break, and spring break. Once Sarah gets back from her breaks, her teacher has one day of review and moves on. Hannah does not have to go to school during the summer but only receives a week or two off here and there. When Hannah returns to start school after summer ends, her teacher takes two weeks to review what they learned the year before. The breaks for Sarah last a lot longer than they do for Hannah. The extensive summer break disconnected Hannah from school and she forgot everything. Year round schooling would benefit students because it would reduce negativity toward school and stress.

As a student, this issue affects me immensely as I experience the results firsthand. From personal experience, I can say that year-round schooling is much better because after every summer, my peers and I tend to forget most of what we’ve learned, causing teachers to spend valuable teaching time to review with us. I also believe that during the many days that we have summer vacation; we could learn a lot more. Although many people view summer vacation as a time to spend valuable time with family, from

What do you do during summer break? Do you go on a long family trip, or do you have to get a job? Now imagine if those plans were ruined by year round schooling. Year round schooling is not beneficial for students and teachers because it can cause more stress, students get summer jobs, and people go on family trips and spend time with family and friends during summer break.

The minute that everybody has been expecting for has at long last arrived. The people are inclining toward the edge of their seats, listening for the last chime to ring to unleash them to freedom. We all love it when summer vacation has arrived, but the time just passes by so fast. A high percentage of the students want there to be a longer summer vacation, but are there really any benefits? Well yes in fact a longer vacation will be associated with many benefits such as increased social life, health benefits, and educational plus financial gains.