Midweek Mini: The Summer Slide Is Real — But the Fix Is Simpler Than You Think

Teachers notice it when students return after a long break. Skills that were solid at the end of the school year feel shaky at the start of the next one. There is a name for this: the summer slide — the loss of academic skills that can happen when children go months without reading.

The research on this is real. A review of 39 studies by Cooper and colleagues found that students lose roughly one month of school-year learning over the summer on average. It is not universal — some children hold their ground or even gain — but for many, the slide is measurable.

Here is the part that matters most for parents and teachers making summer plans: of all the activities children engage in outside of school, the time they spend actually reading is the strongest predictor of whether they maintain their reading gains. Not workbooks. Not reading apps. Not required book reports. Reading — books children choose, at a level they can handle, for the pleasure of it.

Research by James Kim found that reading even a modest number of books over the summer — as few as four or five — was enough to prevent a decline in reading scores from the end of one school year to the start of the next. The catch: the books need to be at a level the child can actually read. Kim’s later research found that simply handing children books without guidance often led them to choose titles that were too hard — and those children showed no gains at all. Not a stack. Not a curriculum. A handful of books the child actually wants to open, at a level they can handle.

Here is what that looks like in practice:

Let them choose. Children who choose their own books read more and retain more. This is not the time to push the classics. It is the time to follow the interest — graphic novels, sports books, series, magazines. Whatever gets them turning pages counts.

Match the book to the reader. A book that is too hard is not reading practice — it is reading avoidance in disguise. Books away from school should feel easy enough to be enjoyable. The goal is volume and pleasure, not challenge.

Get a library card and use it. The public library is one of the most underused tools in a child’s summer. Most libraries run summer reading programs that provide structure, rewards, and access — all free.

Keep reading visible. Children who see adults reading are more likely to read themselves. A book on the kitchen table, a parent reading alongside a child, a family audiobook in the car — these signals matter.

The summer slide is not inevitable. It is not about drilling skills or making time away from school feel like school. It is about keeping books in children’s hands and making reading feel like something that belongs to them — not something that happens to them.

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