Parents are being encouraged to keep learning alive during the summer holidays to ensure that children do not lose academic ground when they return to school in September.

Research shows that during the summer break, children can lose a significant amount of academic knowledge and skills, with up to two months of learning in mathematics and reading achievement.

Trisha Williams-Singh, chairman of the Early Childhood Commission (ECC), provides tips on how parents can incorporate learning into their child’s everyday activities.

She says parents can use fun and creative ways to reinforce key concepts taught during the school term.

“One way is engagement through various art forms. This might involve the creation of an art portfolio based on letters, numbers or concepts. The resources here could include cartridge paper, markers, crayons and paint. The goal is never to leave the child to work independently for the entire time but instead, make time for joint projects,” she explained.

For children who struggle with attention and concentration, Williams-Singh shares that an exciting method is to play a memory card game where picture cards are placed face down and players take turns randomly selecting two cards and flipping them over.

“If the cards match, the player removes the pair from the array of cards and collects them. If the cards do not match, the player flips the cards back over, ending their turn. The goal is to collect the greatest number of matching pairs,” she points out.

Simple jigsaw puzzles also help children to focus, by engaging them in arranging and orienting the pieces.

The activity increases the amount of time they spend on the task beyond their typical attention span.

“In addition, a cultural favourite is the use of story time to build vocabulary and comprehension skills. This can be through a story that was just read or even a family movie you just watched together,” Williams-Singh suggested, noting that a story could be created from a trip made to a new parish, as lived experience makes learning even more exciting.

She encouraged parents to imagine the conversations they can have with their children along with follow up questions to build comprehension skills like decoding, fluency, vocabulary, sentence construction and cohesion, reasoning and background knowledge and working memory and attention.

“Engagement during the summer is never about completing pages of a workbook. It’s about spending some well-deserved time with your child or children to open the doors to their creativity. A memorable learning experience is one filled with hands-on engagement. It’s one that will remain with your child for years to come,” Williams-Singh said.