Summer school: Is it the right solution for your child?

Summer school helps kids reinforce skills, catch up, gain an educational edge

Summer school used to be associated with remediation only. A kid in summer school meant that he was struggling academically, and required extra summer schooling to catch up with his peers. But no longer. An increasing number of parents are sending their kids to summer school (or using a summer tutor) as a way to keep their skills current over long summer months, to play catch up where they may have struggled with certain concepts or subjects, or to gain an educational advantage for the upcoming school year. Whereas in the past, summer school was sometimes considered "punishment" by kids, with increased specialty instruction, small student-teacher ratios, and enrichment-style learning in many cases, suddenly summer school is often considered "cool!"

Why consider summer school?

• Summer school helps prevent "brain drain" of topics learned over the previous year. Since school is a stepping stone where each year provides the foundation for new skills the upcoming year, forgetting basic school-level skills is a real problem for teachers every year.


• Since class ratios are very small, or even one-on-one, students benefit from receiving quality instruction with fewer distractions.


• Target tutoring allows students to benefit right where they need it the most.


• Students with low self-esteem or academic concerns benefit greatly from summer school. While their report cards may show an A, the may be fearful about new concepts to be learned and whether they will be able to grasp the content as quickly as their peers.
• Summer school is a great confidence builder, in that a student entering a grade where fractions will be learned, for example, can enter into the classroom already having that base understanding to feel better about overall school success.

See next page for summer school program options to consider.