樱桃视频

Make no mistake: Alexis Valle is not here for remedial purposes. 鈥淏asically, you turn off your brain over summer and forget everything you learned the year before,鈥� Alexis says. He shakes his head disdainfully at the prospect of whiling away summer days at home watching TV.

If this were a teacher or a summer learning loss researcher, the comment wouldn鈥檛 raise an eyebrow. But this is a kid. And he鈥檚 only 11.

Small for his age, bright, and articulate, Alexis talks animatedly about the windmill he built recently at his school鈥檚 four-week summer learning program. A fifth grader at Fair Oaks Elementary School in Pleasant Hill, CA (樱桃视频 Rating 3), he asked to participate in the program, which offers 90 minutes of hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) experiment time each day. It’s a lot, considering the . The curriculum is ambitious, tackling environmental engineering and renewable energy challenges — like cleaning up an oil spill, designing a dam to protect the wetlands, or building a windmill.

鈥淲e learned a lot about solar energy,鈥� Alexis says, proffering the most telling example of a child鈥檚 learning engagement: 鈥淭hen I convinced my parents to buy solar panels and saved the family a lot of money.鈥�

Reversing summer slide

Every year, millions of kids attend summer programs designed to improve academic skills, but many millions more don鈥檛 get access to these programs. Johns Hopkins University researchers estimate that as much as two-thirds of the achievement gap can be traced to summer learning loss in elementary school. And because that loss is cumulative, the achievement gap may never be closed without effective summer learning programs. But what kind of programs really work? And, if you鈥檙e a parent searching for a quality summer program for your child, what should you look for?聽Is a fun, campy learning environment what kids need — or should there be an intense focus on academics or test-taking strategies?

Alexis鈥� school is one of 61 schools across 13 districts (including Oakland, Fresno, Sacramento, and Los Angeles) participating in California鈥檚 statewide — a group effort to design and run effective, meaningful summer learning, launched by a coalition of nonprofits, school districts, and private funders. Together, they鈥檙e attempting to tackle the 鈥渟ummer slide鈥� — — both by offering a research-based curriculum but also by studying participants to learn what exactly summer programs can accomplish. Summer Matters research — and Alexis鈥� experience — offer parents a glimpse at what exceptional summer learning looks like, and help explain why, despite the best of intentions, some summer programs don鈥檛 work at all.

Summer school 3.0

At Fair Oaks, like all campuses participating in the Summer Matters campaign, the adults have worked hard to incorporate 鈥渃amp-like鈥� elements, like theme days, arts and crafts, and big kickball games, but the kids aren鈥檛 fooled. They know it鈥檚 summer school… and they like it. If summer school 1.0 is the old-school model where you show up and smoke in the bathroom, and 2.0 is mandatory drill-and-kill remediation to prove you鈥檙e not a child left behind, then this is summer school 3.0 — an inspired place of cool, project-based learning where the kids actually want to be.

According to research, the best summer programs offer a blend of academic and social elements. These programs yield positive student outcomes such as better school attendance (which research shows is directly tied to graduation rates), increased academic achievement, more motivation to learn, stronger feelings of belonging, and less risky behavior.

A novel approach

Slashed budgets mean far fewer school districts can offer any learning programs, be they elective or mandatory, over the summer. The goal of the Summer Matters campaign is to help reverse that trend, and organizers are making innovative choices to keep summer learning costs down. One example: hiring and training after-school staff, typically paid less than teachers, to lead summer programs. Projects include STEM projects like building windmills, which is hands-on, interesting to kids, and is a curriculum cost-saver: the experiment is designed and vetted by ). In the long run, summer programs may actually save money. The National Summer Learning Association estimates that re-teaching students what they forgot over the summer costs as much as $1,500 per student. Meanwhile, the Mount Diablo Unified School District‘s summer learning programs (including Alexis鈥� program) serve roughly 500 students at five schools for $105,000.

Awesome gains

To make their case, the Summer Matters coalition collected data at summer programs in Fresno, Los Angeles, and Sacramento in 2012. The results are compelling: participants have better vocabularies, stronger reading skills, improved attitudes toward reading and school, and better work habits. Parents also reported school-related social-emotional gains in their kids, such as making friends, showing leadership skills, and getting along better with adults. All without school-year stresses like homework or test pressure &mash; and the kids had fun.

STEM frontier

Despite the cool experiments, it鈥檚 not a magic bullet for STEM attrition. Research shows that a third of fourth graders show negative attitudes toward STEM subjects, and by eighth grade it鈥檚 up to half. And while Alexis says he wants to be a scientist, only 57 percent of the kids who participated in Summer Matters programs last year said the same. The upside is that the program may be on the right track: the vast majority of Summer Matters participants said they learned a lot about STEM, they liked it, and 85 percent said they鈥檇 like to learn more about science. It鈥檚 a start.

But that鈥檚 hardly the main point. Alexis鈥� program is one of a dozen in California’s Bay Area with a summer science element. In a way, the STEM element is just a bonus. Quality summer learning experiences that results in better attendance, improved reading and vocabulary skills, positive engagement with school, and character traits that help kids succeed in school — those are the point.

Alexis says his experience conducting science experiments, sometimes over and over, has taught him a thing or two. 鈥淭here鈥檚 always going to be that thing you need to fix, then you鈥檒l get it to work,鈥� he says. Summer learning experts could not have said it better.

Signs of a strong summer program

So what should parents look for when choosing a summer learning program? 鈥淲e have 80 indicators of quality in a summer program,鈥� says Katie Brackenridge, a senior director at the , a nonprofit driving the Summer Matters campaign. For parents, she points to these five essentials:

• A friendly, fun, engaging summer camp culture. Think group songs, fun routines, and call-and-response attention getters. Because learning can be (and should be) fun.
• A daily lineup of activities and field trips that expose kids to new experiences, encourage kids to work in teams or groups, sprinkle in academic skill-building (like reading a play and then acting it out, or learning physics principles for an experiment), and get kids outside to run around and explore.
• Clear directions and clear expectations. If you can鈥檛 figure out what the kids are supposed to do, how will your child?
• Clear reasons why particular learning activities (STEM or not) are chosen — and how well the experiments and projects are explained. Look for the 鈥渋ntentionality鈥� of each lesson, experiment, and experience.
• A positive environment. 鈥淚t can be loud and chaotic,鈥� Brackenridge says, 鈥渂ut not rife with discipline problems.鈥�