School in the summer

Everybody tells you that if kids don’t keep up with reading and other scholarly activities over the summer, they can lose as much as half of what they gained the previous year. So it is important to work at maintaining the gains made.

I’m not 100% sure I believe that completely, given my experience with Mustang. Between Grade 1 and 2 I worked hard with her on reading. She slogged, I pushed, she complained, I insisted, she resisted, I stood firm. By the end of the summer I felt she had made good progress from where she had been at the end of Grade 1. She went back to school and – bingo! – her reading level slipped back right to where it had been at the end of Grade 1, virtually overnight. The regression didn’t last that long – by the end of September she was back at end-August capabilities, at which point I told her teacher to send home harder books for her to read.

Between Grade 2 and 3 I again really focused on reading, reading, reading. (I was off work all summer, so I was able to be persistent and pull out the current book two or three times a day.) For the first few weeks it was painful – slow and resistant. But by mid-July she picked up the pace, started reading much better and saying she actually enjoyed it. She wanted to try to read one book in a day – didn’t quite make it, but did manage to read 9 chapters (out of 10) in one day once. By the end of the summer she’d read 26 chapter books, which is quite an accomplishment for a dyslexic kid. When she went back to school I was watching for signs of regression, and again saw some though not as bad as at the beginning of Grade 2.

This just makes me wonder if perhaps the “regression” comes not from not working over the summer, but is somehow affected by the return to school. Of course, this is Mustang we’re talking about, so it may just be particular to her. It will be interesting to see how things go with Button from one year to the next.

In any case, this past summer we had learning activities too. Mustang was still working on her Brain Games, so that was the emphasis for the summer. Much less time was devoted to reading practice, though she still got through 5 chapter books. I also purchased a Grade 4 science workbook, with an eye to giving her some prior exposure to the concepts and vocabulary of the Grade 4 science curriculum. We were diligent at that through to the end of July, and then some day-camps and just wanting “time off” intervened. But she managed to get through about half of the units. The book did not go into great depth, but was sufficient for my purposes. I hope to pull it out again once she starts the units we missed (or perhaps over Christmas) to help provide extra support and exposure to the materials. We also watched a whole bunch of related videos borrowed from the public library, to provide another means of consolidating learning. While Mustang is good in science and enjoys it, she benefits from “pre-teaching” of concepts and vocabulary, so I am hoping this summer work will contribute to her success in science this year.

Similarly, a review of the Grade 4 social studies curriculum showed they will be focusing on Canadian geography and the Middle Ages. I found several children’s novels and videos about the Middle Ages and we’ve watched/read several of them. It’s harder to find novels about Canadian geography, but I’ve found one series in which the heroes move around from place to place in Canada, so hopefully that will be relevant. I also picked up a wall map and some pictures of Canadian symbols (beaver, maple leaf, RCMP, etc.).

As for Button, his summer work was a lot less extensive. For a few weeks in July we worked on his sight word recognition and “reading.” He also had a Grade 1 workbook he worked in all summer long, doing 6-10 pages every day (very simple stuff, covering phonics, vocabulary, math, science, and the like). He didn’t quite make it through the workbook, but completed over half of it.

Button also played soccer all summer, two evenings a week with a local league that has a developmental program. He really enjoyed it, and at the end his coach says he shows real talent and is a super fast runner. Mustang took riding lessons again, though unfortunately she missed three of the eight lessons (one absence planned, the other two not).

As a reward for all their hard work, in July we visited the Aerial Adventure in the nearby hills, and at the end of August I took them to the Fair, at which we rode rides all afternoon, saw lots of animals, and ate ice cream and fries.

Of course, not all learning comes out of books. So I tried to make the various activities we engaged in fun and to seek learning opportunities in everything. We went camping, fishing, playing at the beach; the kids each went to two day-camps: for Mustang, farm animals and being an “emergency vet,” for Button, farm animals and soccer. And just going for walks in the woods, catching frogs at the pond, and of course, watching puppies being born and helping to care for them.