What Is the Summer Slide and How to Prevent It
Everything you need to know about understanding, detecting, and preventing summer slide for you or your child this summer
Author
Tess Loucka
Published:
June 2025
Key takeaways
- • Summer slide, or summer learning loss, is the loss of a student’s academic knowledge or skills during the summer months.
- • A lack of structured learning causes summer slide.
- • You can prevent summer slide by reading, reviewing topics learned during the year, signing up for summer classes and activities, and visiting museums and libraries.
Summer slide is a student’s loss of knowledge that takes place during summer break due to a lack of structured education.
Picture going down a slide at the playground. At the top, you’re fresh out of the classroom and still remember everything you learned. Once you reach the bottom, most things you learned in class feel like distant memories. Details are hazy, and you’ve already forgotten what it’s like to sit behind a desk in a classroom!
The issue with summer slide isn’t just that students forget some facts here and there; it’s that students return to school with major gaps in their knowledge and are unprepared to start the next grade.
Fortunately, summer slide is preventable! Let’s discuss the different ways summer slide can affect students, as well as how to prevent summer learning loss.
Understanding the Summer Slide
So, what is the summer slide?
Educators have been studying the summer slide for over a century, and still don’t know exactly how and who it affects. However, there are various theories on what you can do to minimize its effects.
What the Research Says About Learning Loss
According to studies done in 2017, students lose an average of one month of learning during the summer.
That’s one full month of school gone!
Researchers have also discovered that summer slide affects mathematics more than it affects reading and language.
Despite these discoveries, summer slide isn’t set in stone—reading, reviewing, and maintaining information through practice are all simple ways to stay on top of studies during the summer months.
Who Is Most Affected and Why It Matters
Summer slide can affect everyone, but not in the same way; certain students are more likely to struggle at the start of a new academic year than others.
Students in higher grades are likely to lose more of their knowledge during the summer months than students in lower grades. This makes a lot of sense.
Information learned in higher grades is often more specific, theoretical, and complex. Holding onto that knowledge requires frequent review, which many students are unmotivated to do during summer break.
Also, students from low-income households are more likely to lose reading skills during the summer than students from middle- and high-income households.
This fact was proven in studies done by Barbara Heyns in 1987 and 1982, in which she compared the test scores and progress of students from different socioeconomic statuses.
She found that students of wealthier parents tended to have more educational opportunities outside of the classroom than other children and were able to retain more information during the summer.
Signs Your Child May Be Experiencing Summer Slide
No student is immune to summer slide, but catching it early can help minimize its effects. So, let’s discuss how you can detect if summer slide is affecting your child and what you can do to stop it.
Reading and Math Regression
These are the main areas of study that summer slide affects. If you notice your child struggling to read as well as they did earlier in the year, reading slower than normal, or simply avoiding reading, it’s likely their reading level is starting to drop.
Similarly, if your child is struggling to understand math concepts that they’ve already learned, or has trouble solving problems they knew how to solve before, you can be sure that summer slide is affecting their math skills.
Drop in Attention or Engagement
Academics aren’t the only thing affected by summer slide. A student’s ability to stay focused and engaged in educational activities can also be affected by a lack of structured learning.
That’s why teachers often note that students are rowdier and harder to control in those first few weeks after summer break.
If your child shows less interest in learning than they did during the school months, or can’t sit still or focus for an extended period, they likely are experiencing summer slide.
Table of contents
How to Prevent Summer Learning Loss
Now that we know what summer slide is, how exactly can we stop it from happening?
The key to preventing summer learning loss is providing students with learning opportunities outside the classroom!
Give your child books to read, watch educational television programs, review concepts they learned during the year with them, and take them to museums or libraries.
Additionally, many schools have free summer programs that offer students learning opportunities while still allowing them to relax and enjoy their summer break.
To maintain math skills during the summer, online math programs, math games, and workbooks are great, low-budget tools that can keep your mind sharp.
Another key factor of summer slide is screen time. A lack of daily structure can leave many students stuck to their phones, tablets, or computers. While these can be exceptional tools for education, during the summer, they’ll mostly be used for watching shows, scrolling through social media, and playing games.
Mindless activities like staring at a screen can accelerate summer slide. So, limit screen time and replace it with something more educational.
You can also sign your child up for summer classes. Weekly sports, art, creative writing, or other activities can enrich a child’s life and add structure and learning to their summer.
The most important thing you can do as a parent or guardian is to encourage and motivate your child to keep learning.
Conclusion
Summer slide is a real issue for students everywhere. It does more than just cause students to forget a few important facts—it can set them up for failure when they return to the classroom in the fall.
Luckily, preventing summer slide is easy. Motivate students to keep learning during the summer by giving them books, signing them up for fun summer programs or classes, and taking them to educational events or exhibits at your local museum or library.
Staying on top of your child’s education can feel like a full-time job, but with just a few simple strategies, you can set them up for success.
FAQs About Summer Learning Loss
Summer slide is the loss of knowledge students experience when they are not regularly receiving structured education, like during summer break.
Summer slide is very real. Research has been done about summer slide for over one hundred years, and scientists are still learning new things about it.
You can stop summer slide from affecting your child by signing them up for summer programs or classes, taking them to museums and libraries, and—most importantly—motivating them to keep learning during the summer months.
Summer learning loss.
