Beware of the slide!

So one of the biggest things that I have been talking about this month, both during school visits with kids and presentations to parents is the Summer Slide. I have also heard Summer Drain, Summer Melt, and Summer Stop. With the kids I call it Brain Drain. Call it what you will, it's bad. I'll use the analogy that I use with the kids. Imagine your brain lifting weights. During the school year your brain is working hard, and with every new thing that you learn it gets stronger and stronger. You're reading books, practicing your math skills, filling your brain with science, social studies, and language arts. Then summer comes. Imagine doing absolutely nothing to keep your brain strong. If you've been lifting weights and suddenly stop, pretty soon it's going to be really hard to keep holding them up before your muscles weaken and you drop them. Then imagine being expected to not only be able to pick up the weights again in the fall, but to be able to lift heavier ones. It's not going to happen, at least not without a heck of a lot of practice to get back to where you were and then you're behind the rest of the pack. The solution is to keep working out your brain over the summer. Read books, practice your math skills, do a crazy outdoor science experiment, or go on a field trip with your family to learn and discover something new. Don't let your brain get weak. It sounds so easy that everybody should be doing it, but sadly this is not always the case. There are countless websites, blogs, books, and articles that talk about this very topic. In many cases children in economically challenged areas suffer the most. I've witnessed it firsthand, having worked in a very disadvantaged community for almost 10 years. I can't tell you how many times I would go on school visits and see kids that I had never seen before in my life. I always wondered what happened to them when the school year ended. More often than not, turnover was so high that kids I saw before winter break were not the same ones I would see during summer reading visits. Reasons why these kids who are most in need don't attend the library or read over the summer vary significantly with the biggest ones being transportation, lower quality child care if any at all, and parents who struggled in school which continues the pattern. As much as I would love to be able to reach everyone, it's just not possible. So I try to make the most with the contact I get with kids and let them know how important it is for their educational future to keep the learning going all year long. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that I recognized many of the kids during this year's summer reading visits which is significant because I've only been at my current location for about a year. It just reiterates the differences between communities. While not the most affluent community in the area, the kids are at a definite advantage. My hope is that the topic of Summer Slide continues to become more mainstream so that it reaches more people.