Also known as the “summer slide,” summer learning loss is cumulative. This means that differing summer learning rates between low-income and high-income students add up with each passing summer, contributing substantially to the achievement gap.

However, summer learning programs can help children sharpen their academic skills. This may be especially true for children from low-income families who may not otherwise have access to summer programs, and for low-achieving students who may require more instruction.

Unfortunately, many school districts do not offer summer programs and those that do often cut the programs when funding becomes scarce.

Read the full article about summer learning at The RAND Corporation.