Keep kids engaged over school breaks

    Children in North America will spend, on average, more than 900 hours attending school in a given year. The average school year in the United States lasts 1,016 hours, the equivalent of 42 continuous days. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, many developed countries begin their academic years in September and end them in June. Some, like Australia, feature four terms with two-week breaks in between each term. Others go to school for most of the year — with various holiday breaks in between — and then get the bulk of their time off during the summer.
    As much time as kids spend in school, there will be times when they are left to their own devices, and during these times it’s easy for them to forget classroom lessons. Sometimes called “summer learning loss” or “summer slide,” this forgetfulness sees many students fail to retain all of their lessons over prolonged breaks from school. Studies indicate that students score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer compared to their performance on the same tests at the beginning of summer. Anywhere from between one to three months’ worth of educational achievement can dissipate during prolonged breaks from the classroom. To help ensure that those hard-earned lessons are not so easily forgotten, parents can help children remain intellectually engaged in various ways over school breaks.

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