Understanding Summer Learning Loss: Statistics, Impacts, and Solutions
Summer learning loss (SLL), often referred to as the "summer slide," is a widely discussed phenomenon. It describes the loss of academic skills and knowledge that students experience during summer break. While the concept has been around for decades, recent studies have raised concerns about the accuracy of previous findings, creating a need to revisit basic research on SLL. This article explores the statistics surrounding summer learning loss, its impact on students, and potential solutions to mitigate its effects.
The Reality of Summer Learning Loss
Concerns about students forgetting what they learned during the school year across a long summer break date back approximately 100 years. Summer break is typically a time for kids to kick back, indulge in a little extra screen time, play outside, and embrace the kind of freedom that only comes with being young and having zero responsibilities. The concept of the summer slide has been on researchers’ radar since at least 1996, when one of the first comprehensive studies on the phenomenon was published. The study showed that kids lose significant knowledge in reading and math over summer break, which tends to have a snowball effect as they experience subsequent skill loss each year.
A 2019 Education Next article by Paul von Hippel highlighted the lack of consensus in the field, calling into question how much we actually know about summer learning loss. The article focused on attempts to replicate a finding from a famous early study, the Beginning School Study, that showed unequal summer learning loss between low- and middle-income students in elementary school explained more than two thirds of the 8th grade socioeconomic achievement gap.
In summary, von Hippel wrote, “So what do we know about summer learning loss? Less than we think. The problem could be serious, or it could be trivial. Children might lose a third of a year’s learning over summer vacation, or they might tread water. Here, we revisit the concerns raised in the Education Next article. In the context of pandemic-era school shutdowns and test score declines, “learning loss” has taken on new meaning-and perhaps new importance.
One might wonder whether it is possible to have “lost” knowledge/skills over a short period like a summer break. However, a long line of research on learning and cognition has shown that procedural skills and those that involve a number of steps tend to rapidly deteriorate in the absence of practice or other reinforcement (see summary in chapter two of this monograph). Furthermore, it is considered normal and healthy to forget a good deal of what one has learned and experienced. All to say, (some) forgetting can be an important part of learning and not an indication that learning did not occur. But how much forgetting is normal during a summer break? And when does forgetting cross the line between “normal” and problematic?
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While our initial understanding of summer learning loss dates back to studies conducted in the 70s and 80s, a flurry of recently published studies now allows for a comparison of summer learning findings based on three modern assessments with large national (though not always nationally representative) samples. Across these studies, test scores flatten or drop on average during the summer, with larger drops typically in math than reading.
Variability in Summer Learning Loss
Though race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status only account for about 4% of the variance in SLL, nearly all prior work focuses on these factors. Using a large, longitudinal Northwest Evaluation Association data set, we document dramatic variability in SLL. While some students actually maintain their school-year learning rate, others lose nearly all their school-year progress. It is important to note, however, that focusing on average drops hides an important finding: there is a huge amount of variability across students in test score patterns over the summer. One study found that a little more than half of students had test score drops during the summer, while the other half actually made learning gains over summer break.
The Impact on Younger Children and Low-Income Families
Younger children are prone to the most learning loss because they’re at a crucial stage in their development. “In general, kids learn a lot more in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade than kids in middle school or high school, because learning follows a curve where it’s accelerated early in life and then plateaus,” says James Kim, Ed.D., an assistant professor of education at Harvard University.
Children from low-income families are also disproportionately affected by the summer slide, in ways that can affect them years into their education. A meta-analysis of summer learning studies from the 1970s to 1990s found that income-based reading gaps grew over the summer. Researchers theorized that many high-income students have access to financial and human capital resources over the summer, while low-income students do not.
In 1997, Doris R. Entwisle, Karl Alexander, and Linda Steffel Olson introduced the faucet theory. Based on spring and fall test scores from their longitudinal Beginning School Study in Baltimore, they found that the difference in reading comprehension abilities between low-income children and middle-income children grew from half a school year in the fall of first grade to three school years by the spring of fifth grade. The real revelation, however, was that almost all of the increase in the achievement gap over the elementary school years could be traced to differences across social lines in summer learning experiences.
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Conflicting Research Findings
What have we learned since von Hippel asked in 2019 whether summer learning loss is real? While the story is still pretty mixed in the early grades, we consistently observe average test score drops during the summer in 3rd through 8th grade. However, differences in the magnitude of test score drops across studies imply that we still cannot say with certainty whether summer learning loss is a trivial or serious issue. This is particularly true in reading where the magnitudes of test score declines during the summer are smaller than in math (which may be attributable to more exposure to opportunities for reading during the summer months compared to math). Additionally, researchers need to pay more attention to the considerable amount of variability across students in summer learning patterns, with many students showing test score gains during the summer. That is to say, summer test score declines are not destiny, but we still know little about who is most vulnerable to forgetting academic skills during the summer.
Studies show that summer losses looked substantial on some tests but not on others. Score gaps-between schools and students of different income levels, ethnicities, and genders-grew on some tests but not on others. The total variance of scores grew on some tests but not on others. On tests where gaps and variance grew, they did not consistently grow faster during summer than during school.
The Importance of Summer Programs
Educators may be wondering what the right path forward is in the meantime until the debate is settled. Whether summer learning loss is real or if learning simply stagnates in the summer, we believe it is less harmful to assume the former and act accordingly (e.g., offering high-quality summer learning opportunities to students) than it is to assume the latter and do nothing.
Low-income students who attend well-designed summer learning programs at high rates reap meaningful educational benefits in math and reading. That’s the central finding discussed in this report. It looks at a groundbreaking study assessing large-scale, voluntary, school district-run summer learning programs and how effective they are. Launched in 2011, the multi-year research project evaluated the outcomes of programs in five urban districts. The goal: to find out whether and how voluntary-attendance summer learning programs combining academics and enrichment could help students succeed in school.
Major findings included:
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- Those who attended a five-to-six-week summer program for 20 or more days did better on state math tests than similar students in the control group. This advantage was statistically significant and lasted through the following school year.
- The results are even more striking for frequent attenders in 2014. They outperformed control group students in both math and English Language Arts (ELA), on fall tests and in the spring. The advantage after the second summer was equivalent to 20-25 percent of a year’s learning in math and ELA.
- High-attending students were also rated by teachers as having stronger social and emotional skills than the control group students.
Recommendations for Effective Summer Programs
For students to experience lasting benefits from attending summer programs, the report recommends that districts take the following steps:
- Run programs for at least five weeks with a minimum of three hours of academics a day.
- Promote frequent attendance by offering programs to multiple grade levels, making personal connections with families, and establishing mandatory programs for the lowest-performing students.
- Include enough instructional time and protect it by avoiding scheduling breaks and special activities during academic blocks.
- Invest in instructional quality by recruiting summer teachers with subject and grade-level experience.
Engaging Activities to Prevent Summer Slide
The good news is that basic skills aren’t hard to maintain over the off-season! Children won’t gain as much from summer reading if they aren’t truly enjoying it. Professor Kim says kids should have access to a wide variety of books that they enjoy reading and are fully able to comprehend. To get started, check out this year's Scholastic Read-a-Palooza Summer Reading Challenge, a free, educational program in which kids can enter reading minutes online to unlock exclusive digital rewards and help donate books to kids in need across the country.
Games and puzzles are a great way for kids to brush up on the basics while having fun at the same time. Experts have found that novelty stimulates the brain and promotes learning. Visiting a historic site or even simply reading together at the park can help your child get more excited about reading and learning. You can also visit a certain location inspired by the books you read together: For instance, read Hidden Figures, the inspiring true story about four black female mathematicians who helped NASA launch astronauts into space, and then check out a planetarium, bringing up topics covered in the book.
Kids who use their imagination are also expanding their vocabularies and experimenting with new concepts. Even though it may not seem like they’re directly “learning” when they’re crafting their own superhero capes with a superhero starter kit or dreaming up complex chain reactions with educational LEGO sets, they’re still calling on familiar skills and developing new ones.
Addressing Other Challenges During Summer
Additional research shows us that summer learning loss involves more than math and reading. In fact, 84 percent of young people who qualify for free and reduced-price meals do not access them in the summer. Reasons may include lack of availability, stigma associated with going to meal sites, or lack of awareness. In addition to hunger, food insecurity has other consequences. For example, some young people gain weight twice as fast during the summer. For many youth ages 14 and up, particularly those from low-income homes, earning an income in the summer is a necessity. Subsidized summer jobs were once an accessible reality for many, but the primary federal funding stream for such programs was eliminated in 2008, leaving cities to take up much of the responsibility. This loss of funding has contributed to a nearly 40 percent decline in youth employment in the last 12 years and a deficit of 3.6 million teen summer jobs. The decline has most affected low-income and minority youth. In addition to the loss of funding for summer jobs, other factors have made summer as much about family economic success as academic success.
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