From New Zealand to Malawi, the United Kingdom (UK) to the United States (USA), Kindergarten to College, learning loss over school breaks is a well-documented phenomenon. Students either forget some of what they learned during the previous school year or their learning stagnates. This “summer slide”, “learning loss”, or “knowledge decay” is especially impactful for students from low socioeconomic status (SES) households. Students from low socioeconomic status households generally come into kindergarten academically behind their peers, an educational gap that grows each year. A study by Shinwell & Defeyter (2017) found that in the USA 

The repercussions of differing levels of achievement before even starting school, combined with successive summers of loss may compound the educational attainment gap between children of high and low SES, and this gap in achievement reverberates, not just throughout their educational career but throughout the life course of pupils. 

Shinwell and Defeyter (2017) also found that in the UK,

regardless of SES, all children show losses in maths computation and spelling skills. Losses in maths equate to around 1.8 months of lost learning, and losses in spelling equate to approximately 4 months’ loss of skills. A meta-analysis showed that higher SES children gained in reading while lower SES children lost skills in reading but both groups lost skills in comprehension, with lower SES children losing more or, at best, tread water, making gains some summers and losing in others. 

Shinwell and Defeyter (2017) also found that, in Germany “Students gained skills when school was in session, but stalled or lost skills in writing and reading comprehension over the summer”. Meyer, Yao, & Kane (2020) found that knowledge decay and stagnation were present in New Zealand despite relatively short summer breaks, meaning the length of the break may not have much impact on the amount of learning loss. Dills, Hernández-Julián, and Rotthoff (2016) found that this loss occurs at the university level as well where students taking successive courses experienced less learning loss when taking the class in fall and spring rather than in spring and then fall, but that learning loss occurred regardless of the length of the break. Shinwell and Defeyter (2017) also found that in New Zealand “students from minority ethnic groups showed the greatest drops… At the school level, lower-income schools, which were overrepresented by ethnic minority students, were also associated with a greater summer drop even after accounting for ethnicity”. This demonstrates that students across the world are experiencing knowledge decay during school breaks, exacerbated by societal disadvantages due to ethnicity and SES. Students and families would be advised to continue working on skills learned during the school year over school breaks.  

With winter break fast approaching students should continue reading, practicing math, and writing daily. These skills are part of our everyday lives and can be practiced through following a recipe with family to practice math and reading, writing a letter or email to loved ones, or reading books while students have free time over the break. Keeping brains engaged and ready over break is one way to support students in transitioning back to the classroom!

By Afrina Rohani, Graduate Assistant at the Center for Social Development and Education