Teacher: How to prevent summer learning loss

School's out, and it's summer break for most students in San Diego County. But, with summer break comes the summer slide. So how can parents prevent, or at least slow, that learning loss over the summer?

Sylvia Anderson, a universal transitional kindergarten and preschool teacher at Green Elementary in San Carlos joined the San Diego News Now Podcast Thursday with some tips.

Anderson spoke with KPBS podcast producer Emilyn Mohebbi.

What the summer slide looks like in a classroom

"It usually takes about a month for them to get back into the learning game," Anderson said. "It's very sad. It's unfortunate that a lot of students don't even pick up pencils or books over the summer break. And so we do a lot of review in the beginning, and a lot of social, emotional learning after the pandemic, getting them ready to be back in class all day long. It's kind of a grind for them."

Should parents place their kids in summer school?

"Before the pandemic, only students that were below grade level were invited to go into summer schools. But since the pandemic— this is the second year after that— all students are invited to go into a summer school program," Anderson said. "But that's not usually what I think is the best thing for students to do. Summer school is about six weeks long, and usually I don't recommend it for students."

Tips to prevent summer learning loss

"I believe making sure that students are sleeping enough and not being on a schedule every day, and that they're eating great, healthy foods, exercising, I think that focusing on that over the summer is very important," Anderson said. "So more hands-on type learning without schedules. Hopefully parents could take them to learn in museums or SeaWorld or the zoo, or some of the great camps that we have here in San Diego. Those are excellent. Students are actually more engaged and more apt to be happy as a learner, as a lifelong learner, as opposed to more of what we do traditionally for nine months in school."

Spending quality time with kids

"I just feel like children should spend a whole lot more time with their parents than they really do, and that's where they learn. They learn with their parents. They learn through music and through puppets and through maybe going to the beach and by just talking to your children," Anderson said. "I feel like that's so important instead of putting them into a camp or into a summer school. But I understand everybody has to work, but we really, as a culture, have to focus on how much time we spend with our kids, because parents are their first teachers. It's not the school teacher. It's not the summer school teacher. It's not the camp leader. It's the parents."

Educational activity books

"There is this one book that I like, and it’s called bridge to learning ('Summer Bridge Activities') and they have it for every grade. So, for first to second grade, second to third grade, and it kind of reviews the big ideas that we’ve taught over the school year, and then it gives you some activities to work on, for the next school year too. Some of the activities they’ll learn in their next grade," Anderson said. "So I like that because it just puts pencil to paper. I remember doing it with my children as a mom and just making sure that ... learning was always a priority in our house. And even though it's summer, for them to sit down and to be able to continue learning and to read every day, do math every single day. It's not just a nine month thing that we do, it's every day."