September already?!

What to expect:

5 min read

This week, with many schools starting their summer vacation, we dive into the academic impacts of a long break and what you can do to mitigate them. Here’s what to expect:

• Tech Talk: Reading practice to the rescue

• Surplus Scoop: Self-driving cars now impact our schools - no seriously

• Brainy Bits: Yikes - the vacation research that doesn’t lie

Tech Talk

Read all about it!

As many schools wrap up their academic year, teachers may want to think about ways to keep independent learning going throughout summer vacation. One key skill that often goes unpracticed throughout the summer is reading.

Without the structure of school, many students don’t have the time or desire to keep up with their reading development. This is especially the case if reading is already an area of struggle or still in development, such as with our early/primary learners. Enter this week’s educational app - ReadM. 

ReadM is a mobile app (also available on any web browser) that leverages elements of AI, gamification, and practice to create a personalized reading experience in the absence of a teacher. What makes it unique is that it is not just a generic reading app - it becomes very targeted to its user the more it is used. Not just in the practice/work that it offers, but - and we like this part the best - the real time feedback that is not just a bunch of generic comments.

Here’s how it works. As learners read selected stories aloud, the app will provide instant feedback to help correct any oral mistakes made without any delay. This helps build confidence in our young readers over the summer. 

The reading material itself is provided by ReadM, which means unfortunately it cannot work with just any reading material the student wants. There are tons of age and subject-appropriate titles to pick from though. Due to the nature of this content, this app would best benefit a younger/primary learner, or an older ELL student. The cool graphics that go along with each story should help maintain engagement.

If parents want to get involved, there is progress tracking built right in. Cost wise, it’s fairly reasonable. Since this is a summer tool, parents may be the one footing the bill, and so for $18/year (per student), this is not a bad buy at all. Should a teacher want to purchase it for a class instead, you’re looking at $16/year per class and with that you can write/upload your own short stories using their AI tool to further personalize the material.

We know you may not have the same students next term, but setting them up for success over the break with apps such as this can make for a summer that doesn’t erase all of their hard work. And the best part is that it still gives us teachers the chance to relax and recharge.

Do you normally give practice opportunities over the summer break? Hit reply and let us know!

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to learn more:

• Self-driving cars - the growing concern for crossing gaurds - is there a solution?

• It’s not just summer school being offered - this district is helping it’s community with summer lunches too

• US teachers now have access to Khan Academy’s FREE AI assistant - do you qualify?

Brainy Bits

Yes, vacations do impact reading levels

Between staff and students, very few would claim that summer vacation can be a bad thing. A time to unwind and not worry (as much) is great for everyone's mental health, and allows for a fresh start every school year. But what if that fresh start was too fresh? That’s what this week’s study by Klinkhammer (2018) tried to find out.

For this experiment, two groups of students from grades 8 through 11 were selected at random. The first group of students were enrolled in some form of summer course and the other was not for their 12 week vacation. State test scores from both before and after the summer were tracked in a variety of common areas (reading, math, etc.). A simple set up, but one that still yielded desired results. Here’s what they found.

When comparing spring and fall test data, the summer school students showed the most improvement compared to their vacation-only peers. However - and here’s where it gets interesting - both groups showed some level of overall skill loss.

Summer school takers showed up to a 25% reduction in core skills versus a 33% loss for the vacation-only group. What’s most concerning is that of those that did show a loss in skill, the vacation-only group had a loss twice as much in reading skills than the summer school takers.

Although somewhat expected, we need to take these results with a grain of salt as the sample size for each group was incredibly small. Even so, we see similar rates of skill loss outside of education as well. Without practice, it is hard to maintain a skill set. If you were learning an instrument and suddenly stopped for 12 weeks, getting back to the same level could be an uphill battle. Now imagine the skill set you need is still developing and can impact every other subject area - that’s what’s happening here.

These skill losses don’t just impact language scores; it can spread across the entire curriculum. What’s of most concern to us is that these were high school students, meaning most of the reading development had already occurred. We can only imagine what this might look like for a student still learning how to read.

So what can we do? No one is calling for a ban on summer vacation (thankfully), but there are still some things we can offer as their outgoing teachers before their vacation. Apps like ReadM are great if teaching younger grades, and for older grades, something as simple as providing a suggested list of novels for them to access online or via their local library. It does not always have to be just books either! Encourage them to throw on subtitles for every movie or video they watch. Spotify subscriptions in many countries now include access to free audiobooks for students to take advantage of. Essentially, we need to recommend anything we can to increase their reading practice - even if just a bit! 

Every effort will help reduce the amount of skill lost, and give them the best chance possible at succeeding in the new term. Which of these strategies will you try? Hit reply and let us know!

Tell your friends about us!

Like what you’ve seen? Forward us to your friends and colleagues so y’all have something to talk about next week. 😎

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References

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Readm. (2024). See’em. Hear’em. ReadM. Retrieved from https://readm.app/

Brainy Bits:

Klinkhammer, Stacey, "The Effect of Summer Vacation on Reading Level" (2018). Dissertations, Theses,

and Projects. 51. https://red.mnstate.edu/thesis/51