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Does Your Child Leak Learning?

How parents can plug the summer brain drain

(Baltimore, MD, April 28, 2008) – The average summer vacation lasts about 12 weeks, during which millions of children “leak learning” they have accumulated over the school year. According to Sylvan Learning, after a month without reinforcement, approximately 80 percent of the information a student recently learned can be lost unless the new information is reinforced or applied immediately.

The result of this summer learning leak is that most often teachers spend the first six to eight weeks of the school year - or roughly 22% of the year according to a study at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning - re-teaching forgotten information to students instead of teaching new skills.

“Summer brain drain can make it more difficult to understand and retain concepts taught at the beginning of a new grade,” says Dr. Richard Bavaria, Ph.D., senior vice president of education outreach, Sylvan Learning. “Fortunately, by engaging children in learning activities over the summer, parents can avoid a ‘learning leak,’ and help prepare and excite their children for the new school year.”

Parents play a key role in reinforcing learning on an ongoing basis. Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of in-center and live, online tutoring at home to students of all ages and skill levels, provides parents with the following checklist of summer activities that are both fun and a plug for summer brain drain:

Checklist: Summer Fun (that’s Educational, too!)

• Read with your child. You can’t start too early and you can’t read too much. Reading to young children nurtures an interest in language, words and communication. For older kids, reading together can be fun and interesting. Parents can even turn Harry Potter mania into a learning opportunity. Read the books together with your children and ask questions about the plot and characters.
• Search for reading activities on the Internet and create a reading list. There are an abundance of sites that provide summer reading lists for children. At the non-profit www.bookadventure.com, children (grades K-8) create personalized book lists from more than 7,000 recommended titles, take quizzes on the books they’ve read at school or at home, and earn prizes for comprehension of the books they’ve read. The program is designed to motivate students to read more often, for longer periods of time and with greater understanding.
• Plan a field trip. Plan a trip to an interesting site close to home – an historic site, a museum, the zoo, etc. Research the trip in advance with your child and discuss it afterwards.
• Find pen pals. Encourage your child to write notes, postcards and letters to family members and friends as a way of practicing writing.
• Plan a meal together. Having your child help with the regular grocery shopping and meal preparation creates opportunities to use math skills, such as making change, weighing fruits and vegetables, etc.
• Visit the library. Libraries can recommend books appropriate for your child’s reading level and interests, and many libraries offer free children’s programs.
• Keep a journal. Give your child an empty notebook to keep a summer journal. Regular entries will keep writing skills active.

For additional educational resources for children in grades K-12, please visit http://tutoring.sylvanlearning.com/parent_learning_resources.cfm or call 1-800-31-SUCCESS.

About Sylvan Learning

Sylvan Learning is the leading provider of in-center and live, online tutoring at home to students of all ages, grades and skill levels. With approximately 30 years of experience and nearly 1,100 centers located throughout North America, Sylvan’s proven process and personalized methods have inspired more than 2 million students to discover the joy of learning. Sylvan’s trained and certified personal instructors provide individual instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, study skills and test-prep for college entrance and state exams. Sylvan helps transform unique kids into uniquely inspired learners with the skills to do better in school and the confidence to do better in everything else. For more information, call 1-800-31-SUCCESS or visit http://tutoring.sylvanlearning.com.

For more information, contact:
Jennifer Gaegler, Sylvan Learning Center
(410) 843-8928
jennifer.gaegler@sylvanlearning.com