Helping Club Members Overcome “Summer Slide”

Summer learning loss, known as “summer slide”, affects thousands of students every year. During the summer, many students forget some of what they learned over the previous school year, since school break typically marks a time when kids are less engaged in educational pursuits like reading, math, and problem solving. Most students lose two months of mathematical skills every summer, and low-income children typically lose another two to three months in reading. A Johns Hopkins University study found that summer learning loss during elementary school accounted for two-thirds of the achievement gap in reading between low-income children and their middle-income peers by ninth grade.

Now imagine how deep that “slide” will be this summer, due to the closure of schools in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to recent research, the pandemic could result in students returning to school in the fall retaining only 70 percent of learning gains in reading and less than 50 percent of learning gains in math. Some students may even find themselves almost a full year behind (The Collaborative for Student Growth). With this dramatic loss, students will find it difficult to reengage when they return to school this fall. Fortunately, with a high-quality summer tutoring program, this dramatic summer learning loss can be prevented.

Tennessee Tutoring Corps was established by the Bill and Crissy Haslam Foundation, in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs and other youth-serving organizations, to help prevent summer learning loss. In June, over 1,000 qualified college students were recruited to serve as tutors over the summer to children attending youth-serving organizations across the State of Tennessee. These tutors have been working one-on-one with students over the summer, to increase their math and reading skills.

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley is thrilled to be a part of the Tennessee Tutoring Corps and currently employs more than 70 tutors, who are focused on tutoring over 510 of our Club members who are rising K-6 graders.

“We put this program together quickly a few months back to respond to the needs of K-6 and college students who are impacted by COVID-19 in different ways,” Bill Haslam said. “We are grateful to the Boys & Girls Clubs for partnering with us to make the Tennessee Tutoring Corps a success. They have worked really hard to set up a safe environment for learning and could serve as a model as schools make plans for the fall.”

“It has been rewarding to see the program in action as we’ve visited sites in Knoxville and Middle Tennessee,” Crissy Haslam said. “It is great to see the children’s smiling faces, while engaged in learning with their tutors. We look forward to seeing the results of the post-test and the progress made by these students at the end of the summer.”

By providing Club members access to tutors while allowing them to engage in high-yield activities during the summer months, our Club members have the potential to not only decrease the effects of summer learning loss but also have the chance to make academic advances. We are grateful for the partnership with Tennessee Tutoring Corps and know that our Club members will return to school this fall, on track, and ready to tackle the 2020-21 school year.