As the summer creeps up, a sense of relief washes over teachers, students, and parents. At the same time, it’s a daunting thought to think of students having 2 1/2 months without any academic instruction. Incorporating a summer packet or reading challenges can help avoid the summer slide everyone dreads when school rolls around in August.
What is the Summer Slide?
The summer slide refers to the decline or loss of academic skills or knowledge that can occur over the summer when students are out of school. It typically affects students of all grade levels, but it is particularly noticeable among younger students. This loss can lead to a decline in academic performance and a slower start to the new school year.
Ways to Avoid the Summer Slide
To help avoid the summer slide educators and parents should encourage students to engage in summer learning. These can include reading books, participating in educational programs, pursuing hobbies or interests that involve learning, and practicing academic skills such as reading and writing.
While I do not encourage having a child sit for hours a week completing a summer packet, having students complete just a few minutes of focused spiral review a few times a week can be extremely beneficial.
“Having students complete just a few minutes of focused spiral review a few times a week can be extremely beneficial.”
What Should an ELA Summer Packet for 4th & 5th Grade Students Include?
With so many standards covered in 4th and 5th grade, you may wonder what can be beneficial to include. Well, fourth and fifth graders are expected to not only master the new skills taught during the year, but to also be proficient in the skills taught in grades K-3. That means that a spiral review of skills taught that year mixed in with skills from previous years can be very helpful.
Grammar:
There is a lot, and I mean a lot of writing that goes into 4th and 5th grade. Students should know how to use punctuation marks, such as commas, quotation marks, and ending punctuation marks properly. They should also have mastered how to use verb tenses correctly. Including a grammar spiral review into their summer packet is extremely beneficial.
Editing:
Speaking of writing, students should be able to find mistakes in their writing as they go back to reread what they have written. Giving them the opportunity to edit sentences that incorporate grammar skills taught can help them become strong writers and editors. It just takes a sentence or two regularly to help them develop and perfect this skill.
Reading Standards:
Below, I will share some independent reading ideas, however in 4th and 5th grade, students are expected to master very specific standards. Giving students the opportunity to review these in-between school grades can really help it stay fresh in their minds.
Reminding students how to use context clues, root words, and affixes to help tell the meaning of a word can help them during their independent reading. Refreshing the 5 types of text structures can help students identify what the author’s purpose is and why they wrote a specific text.
Other Helpful Ideas to Avoid the Summer Slide in 4th and 5th grade
I really do believe in concise summer packets as a teacher and as a mom. I always incorporated short activities for my own children if their school did not give a specific homework packet. That being said, there are also other ways to keep children engaged in learning when it comes to reading and writing. Here are a few of those ideas.
1. Independent Reading
A love of reading goes a long way! Just as I told parents of students in my classroom, let them read whatever they want. As a gifted teacher, some parents disliked that their child only wanted to read graphic novels. I encouraged them to allow them to read those. A love of reading will inspire them to read more. The more they read, the better they get at it. Their reading will evolve over time.
2. Reflect on Reading
Giving children a fun way to reflect on what they have read is extremely beneficial. It helps them become analytical thinkers and also helps improve reading comprehension. Reading response activities such as creating Croc shoe charms for the character or drawing two Polaroid pictures and comparing and contrasting the settings is a fun way to get students thinking about what they read.
3. Summer Reading Bucket List Challenge
Who doesn’t like a good challenge, right? Have students see how many different genres they can read in one summer, or how many different places they can read at? Have them create a list and check them off as they complete them.
4. Keep a Summer Journal
When my own kids were little, at the end of each week we would create a scrapbook page with pictures of events that they participated in. Then, they write about them. Students can incorporate the same idea, or they can keep a simple journal that they write in daily, weekly, or few times a week. Want to incorporate letter writing skills? Have them add the date, a greeting (Dear Journal,), and a closing (Sincerely,).
Hopefully you have some insight into ELA activities that you can incorporate into your student’s summer that will definitely help avoid the summer slide. If you are interested in already made summer packets for 4th grade and 5th grade, you can check them out below.
