Summer of 4 + 2

With students losing months of math skills once classes end, some educators are trying to help them make vacation count

July 31, 2011|By Lisa Kocian, Globe Staff

It used to be, the only math that students did during the summer involved counting snow cones, sandcastles, or surfboards.

The situation is changing, but more slowly than many educators would like.

There are a wide variety of math programs available during the summer for a price. And demand, at least anecdotally, appears to be on the rise.

But studies show that students still lose somewhere between one and three months of math skills over the summer, a problem that applies across the socioeconomic spectrum, suggesting that parents haven’t gotten the message, educators say.

“I don’t think there’s been an increase in awareness,’’ said Sarah Pitcock, an official with the National Summer Learning Association, a nonprofit organization based in Baltimore. “We see a lot of summer reading lists, but I don’t think we’ve seen a tipping point in terms of math loss awareness.’’

There’s wide variation in how area schools address math - if they do at all - as temperatures climb.

In Needham, elementary school teachers send information home, and post it online, so parents can help their children maintain math skills over the break.

“We work really closely with our elementary parents around mathematics in general,’’ said Theresa Duggan, the Needham district’s director of program development and implementation. “What we do during the summer, we extend it out to things parents can do in the house, day-to-day activities, that help maintain kids’ mathematical thinking.’’

Suggestions for students entering sixth grade, for example, include playing card games, finding the best buy at the grocery store, and calculating the tip at a restaurant. Even a long car ride can provide fodder for math games; just think of all those numbers on license plates.

This summer, Framingham High School has launched a math and English program aimed at students who are at risk of failing.

The school’s principal, Michael J. Welch, said that about 40 students, most of them incoming ninth-graders, are participating. The registration fee is $20 for each two-week session, but scholarships are available.

Funding comes from a grant through the Building Educational Success Together initiative, which is part of the 21st Century School Fund, a nonprofit aimed at improving urban schools.

And students in higher-level math courses? Teachers “bury them’’ with homework over the summer, Welch said proudly.

“Yes, there is a high degree of ‘forgettery’ over the summer,’’ he said. “And I think we struggle to provide programs for kids in the school that are, a) looking to work and make money, and b) are watching all their more-affluent peers going to fun camps, and they see coming to school as more drudgery.’’