Is Structured Learning Necessary During Summer Break?
Categories: Kids 5-7, Development, Education
It's more than a month since my son came home from his final day of kindergarten with a summer workbook. The workbook is optional, but the implication is that he should use it to prep for first grade. So far, it sits idle in our kitchen. He spends most weekdays swimming and running around with his pals at day camp and watching an hour of cartoons. His summer has been much like mine were – mellow and unstructured.
But now, one of my girlfriends has given us a set of workbooks and flashcards leftover from when her kids were younger. Her daughter, now 10, uses workbooks every summer. Even President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have talked about revamping the national school calendar and possibly instituting year-round school, something that writer Brigid Schulte said in The Washington Post she believes would benefit all kids. The Dept. of Education estimates that six percent of schools were running year round as of 2004, and the number may have risen since then.
The lengthy summer break hasn't always existed in America. Year-round school was once the norm in urban areas. Rural kids went to school in winter and summer, with time off in spring and fall for planting and harvesting. Turns out the conventional wisdom that summer break was created to allow kids to help on the family farm is inaccurate. Summer break was a product of education reform and concern over kids spending hot summer months in poorly ventilated schools. It made sense for the time, but does it make sense today?
Assuming the school calendar won't change anytime soon, parents are left pondering the role of summer learning. Education expert Anne Rambo believes workbooks and structured learning can be useful, "but you don't want to make the workbook thing punitive, like, 'Oh, God, here she comes again with the workbook.'"
Rambo, an associate professor of family therapy at Nova Southeastern University and author of "I Know My Child Can Do Better: A Frustrated Parent's Guide to Educational Options," is more a fan of homemade chemistry projects or having kids help plan the budget for the grocery store. Even learning a new instrument, Rambo said, can build confidence.
"Particularly for the child who lags behind academically, these other skills may provide an opportunity to shine," she said. "And for the bright child who is used to doing well in school, struggling with a new skill may provide a good lesson in perseverance."
Do kids benefit most from doing some schoolwork over the summer or spending the entire break playing and daydreaming?
But now, one of my girlfriends has given us a set of workbooks and flashcards leftover from when her kids were younger. Her daughter, now 10, uses workbooks every summer. Even President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have talked about revamping the national school calendar and possibly instituting year-round school, something that writer Brigid Schulte said in The Washington Post she believes would benefit all kids. The Dept. of Education estimates that six percent of schools were running year round as of 2004, and the number may have risen since then.
Assuming the school calendar won't change anytime soon, parents are left pondering the role of summer learning. Education expert Anne Rambo believes workbooks and structured learning can be useful, "but you don't want to make the workbook thing punitive, like, 'Oh, God, here she comes again with the workbook.'"
Rambo, an associate professor of family therapy at Nova Southeastern University and author of "I Know My Child Can Do Better: A Frustrated Parent's Guide to Educational Options," is more a fan of homemade chemistry projects or having kids help plan the budget for the grocery store. Even learning a new instrument, Rambo said, can build confidence.
"Particularly for the child who lags behind academically, these other skills may provide an opportunity to shine," she said. "And for the bright child who is used to doing well in school, struggling with a new skill may provide a good lesson in perseverance."
Do kids benefit most from doing some schoolwork over the summer or spending the entire break playing and daydreaming?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Katty 7-28-2009 @ 3:43PM
I always believed summers were for being lazy and hanging out and spending that non hectic time together with your kids, etc. I can see why parents would want for it to remain that way.
My son finished pre k as his private school this year and on the last day of school they sent home a packet with sheets to practice handwriting and 210 sight words for kindergarten.
We spend 10 minutes tops per day doing a couple of sheets and going over 5 sight words. It doesn't really interrupt our lazy day, we do it after dinner at the end of the day and because my son had a hard time learning how to write (being a left handed child), I think it is great that he is getting to practice a little.
For the sight words we tape them to the fridge, he spells them out, sounds them out and that's the last time we say anything to him. If he walks over and practices on his own, great, but we don't push it. Wehope to get through all 210, but if he learns 10 out of that list, we are good with that.
I think each parent has to find what is right for their child and I think if parents do want to do a bit of school work it can be incorporated into the day pretty easily.
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SKL 7-28-2009 @ 3:51PM
I think it depends on the child and the extent to which "academics" are an integral part of the child's environment.
Three months is a long time, and some kids do forget a lot of what they learned in that time. That makes for a lot of unnecessary review in the next school year. When I was a kid, they did all that review whether we needed it or not, which was really boring for me, so the last thing I wanted to do was "brush up" in advance. I am not sure whether the schools have changed in that regard. My guess is, no. So if I have a bright child who grasps academics easily and is not in an extremely challenging school program, I'm not going to push drills during the summer. However, if they want to do them for fun (a lot of kids do), then more power to them. And if they just passed by the skin of their teeth last spring, then I'd have them work on their weak areas during at least part of the summer.
When I was a kid, we had summer reading clubs, vacation Bible schools, and weekly Sunday school / church, so it's not like we went three solid months without ever touching a piece of paper. I assume that's still true for many/most kids. In addition, "academic" stuff tends to be integrated in what we do as a family every day. There is no proof that "structuring" academics makes it any more likely that kids will learn and remember the stuff. Textbooks and such are for the purpose of standardizing education, not necessarily optimizing it.
Of course, it is important not to underestimate the value of free time. Unstructured play is no less important to learning than structured activities - probably more. If we didn't have summer vacation for kids, we'd end up trying to incorporate unstructured exploration in the school schedule - and you know the public school system would mess that up royally.
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damoki 7-29-2009 @ 4:15AM
SKL,
Please see my post below...
DaMoKi
Glenn 7-28-2009 @ 6:54PM
A few weeks before school ended, I turned around one day and found that my wife already signed my son up for summer school. Not a big deal, it was either that or day camp somewhere and since summer school lasted only three weeks, he's spent time in day camp after a week of vacation.
Things HAVE CHANGED since we were kids. Schools are teaching children an advanced curriculum compared to our school days and the competition to get into the top colleges is greater than ever. I would never be accepted into my college today but it wasn't a problem way back when. My son finished kindergarten this year and he was being graded (rather strenuously) on speeches in class. Something I didn't have to do (with that kind of scrutiny) until the fifth grade. We were working with him on homework between 20 minutes to an hour a night. I should mention that his school is ranked in the top three in the state for all public schools K-12.
My wife found some KUMON workbooks (for first graders) at a warehouse store. He loves doing them, he especially is impressed with himself that he is breezing through first grade workbooks with ease with our additional compliments about that. At the end of each workbook there is a certificate of completion which I fill out for him and he thinks those are just the greatest things. We also have computer games that are learning based for him and even some of the free games online that are logic based or puzzle solving help develop his analytical skills. Learning can and should be fun during summer. Now if we could only get him to read books on his own more.....
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SKL 7-28-2009 @ 10:47PM
I guess it depends what you mean by an "advanced curriculum." For some generations, the public school system thoroughly failed the kids who needed the most help, by setting low standards rather than requiring kids to meet high ones. I went to a Lutheran school. Our curriculum was at least as advanced as what I hear is being taught nowadays. I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder in KG. I started a year early and was given no help at home; my dad was illiterate. Yet I (and my 5 siblings) never suffered any "disadvantage" when we entered a new grade. I feel that the unstructured experiences we had actually made us sharper and better able to tackle the school's "high standards." So like I said, nothing against academic-oriented play, but don't underestimate the benefits of leaving all of that behind, and just venturing out for the day.
damoki 7-29-2009 @ 4:02AM
SKL,
You made three great points.
1- Three months is a long time
2- Textbooks are for standardizing, not optimizing
3- Free time is valuable.
1- Three years (3 months times 12 yrs) is a lot of time out of a kid’s life. I would hope parents would encourage children to attempt something constructive during that time. However, too many parents are ill equipped to guide and encourage their kids during the summer because of limiting skills, education, attitude, inclination, or circumstance; those kids are subject to being trapped in generational cycles of ignorance for the same reasons. A few escape, and are the ones you read about; most do not, and are lost in the crowd.
2- Textbooks are necessary but useless, unless kids are led to the trough of knowledge possessing a thirst they have yet to slake; even when this happens, it is only the first step on the learning ladder. Schools and parents are the key to the optimization of which you spoke; books are simply the baseline.
3- Free time: I am sad when kids are not able to simply stare at the clouds, play in the dirt, swing just to be swinging, and do other similar activities in what I call “doodle time”, which is the time they need to think, imagine, create, and grow from within. I believe attempts to guide or focus “doodling” are counter-productive, because kids need their own mind to be free to synthesize and “bulk-up” through the process of imagination and reflection (without electronics). I do not support letting kids freely roam the streets for three months each year any more than I support filling their days with activities. The answer is less about structured time or not, and more about finding balance.
DaMoKi
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Glenn 7-29-2009 @ 3:17PM
SKL, one of my pet peeves is when people rip the public school system and make generalizations about its inadequacies in educating our children. Yes, many children go through their years in public school education and are not able to read and write. But considering what schools have to go through (underfunding, horrible parents, under motivated children with discipline issues) I see most teachers doing a pretty good job. I and all of my siblings are public school products and the outcome is that my brother is a vascular surgeon, my sister is a corporate lawyer, my other sister is an astrophysicist (the consummate rocket scientist) and I am a computer engineer. ALL public school educated K-12. There was nothing wrong with the education or curriculum at my old schools.
This said, my son has a great amount of play time, structure and unstructured, during these summer months. He’s been to Banff and Los Angeles on vacation, he’s been to summer school, he now goes to day camp, on weekends and nights I play crazy eights and Bakugan with him and we go to the library on weekends.
Are you really suggesting that he’s NOT benefitting from doing workbooks (which he loves to do) as part of his play day? Are you saying that any kind of educational material during the summer months is bad because children should be allowed to have their summers free of anything school related? A good balance for children is what is important and educational play is part of that balance as well as time to doodle and look up at the clouds and go hiking with parents.
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Denise 8-17-2009 @ 6:43PM
Try playing a board game called Er-u-di-tion that incorporates both sight words and phonics.
This award winning game helps children learn to read, spell and understand the most common words in the English language while playing an entertaining board game.
Cards are categorized so children of all reading levels can play together!
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Christine 8-19-2009 @ 11:14AM
While I don't think that hours of stuctured education during the summer are needed a little time every day does make a big difference. We spend a few minutes every day using the skills we learned in the previous year and getting a jump on things they will be learning the next year. I try to work them into things we are doing like practicing math skills while cooking and shopping. I let the kids write out shopping lists and they love to write letters to cousins and grandparents. My one rule that stands year round is at least thirty minutes of reading daily. This is usually done at bedtime. They are allowed to read whatever they wish because I feel that reading is reading. We go the the library every week and I rotate getting the same book with each child (I have 4) so I am always reading the same book as one of my children. This way we can discuss the book and talk about characters, setting and other related literature questions.
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