Jul14, 2021 Akanksha Prakash, Assistant Psychologist and Lead Brain Trainer

Summer Slide

More than 100 years of research finds that over the summer months, students experience what is now known as the “Summer Slide”. They experience a loss of academic skills and knowledge during their summer vacation due to the lack of educational, effective, affordable and engaging activities.

Teachers continually witness their students’ academic skills deteriorate after their summer vacations. As a result, teachers typically spend the first 4 weeks back from summer break refreshing their pupils with information they should have retained.

While all learners experience this slide, there is a particularly acute problem among students coming from low-income households. Irrelevant of one’s age, IQ, race or gender, in the summer, low-income students lose more than 2 months in reading comprehension skills, on average, compared to their more affluent peers. This disproportion in learning loss experienced primarily by the students from low-income groups is due to the lack of access to enriching activities compared to their peers. That is, while their middle- and high-income peers tend to make gains in their reading, writing comprehension and math skills, disadvantaged children fall further and further back. As a result of the summer slide, students in grade 5 can lose nearly 18 months of learning due to summer learning loss.

However, it doesn’t have to be the case because this summer we are here to help you tackle your child’s summer slide. Understanding that inactivity and a lack of educational activities during the summer are causes of your child’s summer slide, it’s time to find the right activity for them. Here are a few free and fun brain training games you can try at home with your kids:

• Similar to traditional Tic Tac Toe, how about you play a game of mental tic tac toe with your child, using a “mental” grid numbered 1 to 9. Players remember where their opponent has already been and call out an unoccupied space. The player who calls an occupied space loses.
• This one’s for all you mom and dad’s that want to enjoy your first cup of coffee or tea before starting your day, we call it needle in a haystack. Take a page from a newspaper and time your child as they circle all occurrences of a specific letter. Focus on increasing both accuracy and speed.
• We are sure you’ve heard your children play this or have even played it yourself before. Think of a person or object and give your child 20 chances to narrow down what you’re thinking of by asking yes or no questions. This game of 20 questions encourages your child to work on their logic & reasoning, teaching them to strategize by using questions that will significantly narrow down the categories, such as “Are they alive?” or “Is it bigger than you?”.
• Finally, let’s work on your child’s verbal rhythm, memory and auditory analysis by having them choose four words that rhyme and then asking them to use those words to create a poem or a rhyming song. Or you may say a word, then have them come up with another that rhymes. Keep this pattern going for as long as possible, then start with a new word.

It is important to target your child’s brain with such activities and look for reading and learning programs that reward or excite your child. And Cambridge Medical Centre brings to you just that. We are launching our very first summer camp, the Learning Lab, that will focus on developing your child’s core cognitive skills, including processing, memory, analyzing, reasoning and attention. Utilizing sensory integration and a creative methodology, the activities organized for this camp intend to build on these skills in a fun and engaging manner. Being interactive in nature, the camp addresses your child’s social and emotional quotient, which are vital aspects of a child in today’s world. Incorporating play in our multidisciplinary approach, our summer camp focusses on your child’s overall development. To learn more about our summer camp, download the full program here, or get in touch with us to find out more!