Episode 26: Is the 'Summer Slide' a thing?
SHOW NOTES
If you've ever heard 'scare stories' of the 'Summer Slide' and how much learning your teen's going to lose over the summer, then I want to reassure you that, from my experience, the Summer Slide is 'a thing', but, it isn't THE thing holding hardworking students back from their goals and their potential.
So, good news if you’d like your teen to step away from the textbooks this summer, AND a must-listen if your teen wants to get ahead, but wants to use their time and effort in ways that will give them maximum return on effort.
You’re listening to the Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 26.
Today we’re talking about the summer slide, and how it may be a thing, but from my experience, it isn’t THE thing that’s holding students back from achieving their goals or their potential.
So, good news if you’d like your teen to step away from the textbooks this summer, AND a must-listen if your teen wants to get ahead, but wants to use their time and effort in ways that will give them maximum return on effort.
Hey VIPs! How is your countdown going? Because I know you are likely on one right now, whether it’s an ‘excited countdown’ or a ‘stop, time is going way too fast’ countdown.
Here in Australia we are over half way through the final term of the year, so we’re getting into major countdown territory for both Christmas and the end of the school year and the summer holidays as well.
But, I’ve got to tell you… right now, I’m not even thinking about Christmas, or the summer holidays, because I am currently neck-deep in marking ATAR exam papers for the QCAA.
We just spent 2 whole days doing exam marker training, and then yesterday, the first proper day of marking, I marked 125 papers. So this is my respite. Getting to record this podcast.
And I can tell you, I have so much I want to share with you from this round of exam marking already. And if you’ve followed me now for more than a year, you’ll know I do this every year. I go through external exam board training, I mark hundreds, sometimes over a thousand papers, and I feed back all of my observations, learnings and insights to you and your teens. All things that I’m allowed to share I should mention. I’m not allowed to share any specific student responses and there are certain things that I can’t discuss until all the results and reports and papers are published publicly.
But I already have a whole stack of ‘ooh, I must tell them this’ listed out on a google doc that I keep open the whole time, and I’ll be recording them for your next - and many more I’m sure I’ll add between now and then. So definitely look out for that. Make sure you’re subscribed or following the podcast so you don’t miss any episodes and handily, they’ll all get downloaded to your app automatically, save you going in and doing them one by one manually.
But, also right now, as I’m recording this episode, we are right in the middle of my ‘Get Your Teen Ahead Over Summer’ event week, and so, there is one particular aspect from that, that I want to discuss in more detail.
And that is the concept of ‘The Summer Slide’. The summer slide is the idea that students lose a certain amount of their learning over the long summer break. Some sources say this can be up to two and half months worth of learning.
Now, I want to say very clearly here that I am NOT an education researcher. I will sometimes do some additional online research or prep before making these podcast episodes, or when prepping for a webinar or really, just for anything that takes my interest or I want to share with you. BUT what all of my advice or tips or insights are based on is my experience. My experience of teaching, of tutoring, of coaching students for over 16 years now, across multiple states and countries. My experience of working with thousands, probably tens of thousands of different high school students. And of working with multiple different exam boards, in different countries and for different types of exams and coursework.
Everything that I share is what I’ve seen work or not work for students. What I know exam boards are looking for and not looking for. What I’ve seen students doing or not doing- in classrooms, in the exam hall, in homework, and in assignments.
So, with that said, here is the key message I want to share with you today:
The summer slide, that loss of knowledge over the long summer break, in my experience, it’s A thing. But it’s not THE thing.
In my experience as a teacher, yes, students do forget some of the concepts and the how-to’s and the knowledge they’ve previously learnt over the summer. And yes, doing some reading, reviewing and practise of those things will help reduce that.
But, in my experience as an examiner, moderator and as a study coach, it’s nowhere near the top of the list of things likely holding your teen back.
If your teen is generally a 7 or more out of 10 in terms of how they get on with learning and understanding their subject content, understanding what they’re being taught in class, then overcoming or working to stop the summer slide isn’t the thing that will give your teen maximum on effort if they do decide they want to do a bit of extra study over summer, or you would like them to be doing something to get ahead.
I often describe the efforts and outcomes of students like filling up their study bucket. Every bit of effort they’re putting in is like pouring water into the bucket. All the knowledge they’re filling up their brain with is them filling up that bucket.
But there are holes in that bucket. And so yes, knowledge is slipping out (or being forgotten) and marks are also dripping out. Sometimes flowing out.
Marks that they are capable of getting. They were in the bucket, but they slipped through their fingers.
And so of course, we want to plug as many of those holes as possible.
They’re putting in the effort, they’re doing the classwork, the homework, learning the subject content. We want them to turn that into results.
So that the number of marks fills up with less effort. They don’t have to keep working harder and harder to try to keep that bucket full.
They still have to pour water in, but less of it is leaking out. They are getting more marks for the same effort. OR, if there are lots of holes, this is where, when they plug those holes, get the missing pieces of their study puzzle, the skills, the strategies into place, they get more marks for LESS effort than they were putting in previously. The bucket is filling up more even though they are working less, because hardly any water is now leaking out of the bottom.
And what I think the idea of the summer slide represents is that they’ve added all this water to their bucket through the year, and then over the summer, lots of it evaporates.
Now, the amount that actually does evaporate is debatable.
Some sources say it’s up to two and a half months of learning.
More recent studies show it’s less.
But what I want to say is that for most hard-working students, that isn’t the issue.
Yes, some water is evaporating, but that’s nothing compared to what’s leaking out of the holes in the bottom.
So, yes, taking steps to improve or review or get ahead on subject content may help. That may stave a few drops of water over summer. But, meanwhile, all through last year, and all through next year, they’re going to be continuously losing marks out of the bottom of that bucket through other holes they’re not plugging.
These are holes like their exam technique, the types of revision planning and actual revision strategies or activities they’re using, their note-taking systems, their essay planning systems, how they respond to the top-level commands like analyse and evaluate.
Those are the places I see most hardworking students losing marks.
Because it doesn’t take them long to get back up to speed with understanding the subject content, they can keep up in class. In fact, usually, in high school, they are learning brand new topics and content anyway. Yes, some concepts will flow through, especially in subjects like Maths or English, and I think that is why the summer slide is more significant in the earlier years and primary. But really, when it comes to high school and when it comes to hardworking students who are doing pretty well, or even just at least okay, the summer slide is A thing, but it isn’t THE thing.
So, why am I sharing this with you?
Because, if your teen is anything like I was as a student, they may well be considering ways to give themselves the edge over the summer. They might be feeling like they SHOULD be doing something to help them get where they want to be, wherever that is for them.
Or they may have been set homework over the summer. I know that often in English, especially in the senior years, students get set the task of reading the next novel or watching the movie they’re going to be studying. And I just want them to be putting in time and effort that’s going to pay off for them.
I want them to have as much time as possible to relax and enjoy themselves. Whether that is taking the whole summer off and not feeling guilty about it because what they were planning to do, turns out - was never going to really give them much pay off, or so that what they DO do gives them maximum ROE - return on their effort.
Or, of course, you can apply this to any time they are going over and above what has been set, in an effort to increase their results.
I’ve told you before the story of me sitting in the library in my second year of my A-levels. Following that not such good ole’ advice of ‘reading around the subject’. THinking that it was making me a smart and savvy student who had a broad knowledge I could then draw on for exams. I’d ferretted through the stack of National Geographic magazines and looked for a case study that would match with the latest topic we were studying in Geography and took two pages of notes.
And yes, I did shoe-horn in that case study into one of my final Geography papers.
And I can almost guarantee it would’ve gotten me no marks. Obviously I have no idea, but I’d bet my last chocolate on it and I do see it in a few students papers. In fact I’ve seen it a couple of times in this year’s marking already. They drop in some extra statistic or refer to some example that they’ve obviously learnt, but really isn’t required in their answer and actually just tends to dis-joint the response. It’s information, but it doesn’t match the rest of the question or it even does match the question but it’s just not needed. I know this sounds harsh, but it’s true.
And remember, I get it - I did the same.
So they’re only doing what they thought good students do and only trying to get more marks. Like I did.
So the reason I’m sharing this is, because for sure, If they are just really interested in a topic and want to read about it, research it, learn about it, fantastic. That’s called enjoying your spare time. All for it. And if your teen feels like they need to improve their knowledge of something they will definitely cover next year, then go for it. I’m not saying they shouldn’t.
But if they’re doing something to get ahead, I’m just saying, identify what is the leakiest hole first.
Figure out what will give maximum ROE.
If it is knowledge that’s holding your teen back and they want to work on that over the summer, all good. But my point is, don’t just study aimlessly for the sake of it.
To get the feeling of working hard. Because hard work does not directly = results. More hours, more notes does not automatically translate to grades.
I remember spending one holiday one year, laying on the beach, reading The Gaia hypothesis. One of my lecturers had recommended it for wider reading. So, still, even into Uni, being the dedicated student, I of course read it.
Now, yes it was kinda interesting to me. So yes, there was an element of pleasure. But did it make any difference to my study or results? No.
Might I have still read it if I’d known it would have zero pay off in terms of my study? Maybe.
But the problem was, back then, I had no idea I had other holes in my bucket. I had no idea about exam technique. I had no idea how different levels of commands worked. So I couldn’t make an informed decision.
I don’t want that to be the case for your teen.
I don’t want them to just study aimlessly, for the sake of it.
So, I’m not saying that the Summer Slide isn’t ‘a’ thing. Subject knowledge and concepts are important, but is subject knowledge the leakiest hole in their study bucket?
Or is it something else that they could be understanding, learning or practising instead.
And I also want to give them total permission to NOT be doing something, if the only reason they’d be doing it is to give them a feeling of getting ahead or a feeling that they are being productive. If they just feel like they should be reviewing or going over something that actually, isn’t going to give them any significant Return On Effort.
Now, I’d love to know - what are you realising is THE thing for your teen?
Not just A thing, but THE thing? Send me an email and let me know. I may have finished all the exam marking by the time this episode goes out, but if it takes me a couple of days to get back to you, then you know I’m still zoned in on that. (be sure to join me next week for my exam marker diary episode!) But I WILL get back to you and I’d love to hear what students are really missing so that I can make more episodes on the things you need.
On that note, be sure to follow or subscribe if you haven’t already, and while you’re there if you could drop a super-quick rating and review, that would be A-Mazing!
I’ll see you back here next week VIPs. Have a brilliant week. Bye!
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