Preventing The ‘Coronavirus Slide’ From Affecting The Child’s Acquired Skillset

‘Summer Slide’ is a phenomenon observed among young children, wherein they tend to slip out of practice in their reading and math skills while they are away from the classrooms during summer break. In some cases, this significant loss of skill in reading and math tends to have a snowball effect in their subsequent year at school.

Younger children, generally in kindergarten through second grade are more prone to this kind of learning loss as they are at a crucial stage in their development. The concept of summer slide has been researched on since 1996 and there are multiple studies published based on the phenomenon.

With the current scenario of lockdown, the situation is similar to an extended summer vacation, just without any outdoor play. Scientists have already begun research activities to understand if there is a significant decline in children’s reading skills as an impact of the lockdown.

Researchers from Yale University and University of Connecticut are attempting to measure the impact, which they call by the term ‘coronavirus slide’, as the lockdown would deprive the children of classroom induction for at least 4 months; though unlike summer vacation, the situation is slightly different where many children are now engaged in virtual classroom activities organised by their schools.

While the remote learning engagements are helping children establish learning continuity, there are few additional considerations for parents, to help prevent a possible ‘coronavirus slide’.

The fundamental step is to believe the children for their abilities and support them to maintain their love of learning, which would eventually help them maintain their fundamentals in literacy and math skills. Here are a couple of ideas in that direction:

Getting children to develop the habit of reading

Reading has proven to be one of the most effective ways to build vocabulary. Having more words at their disposal would help children make more sense of all things around them. Reading books help children develop deeper cognition and helps them to have an improved academic achievement.

A research by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) directly correlates reading with work success and the ability to achieve future goals. Vocabulary helps children in making better sense of their experiences, eventually freeing up their thinking resources for learning and development.

When the child is observed to be a resistant reader, it is essential to work on their reading stamina. The parents can make the children read, starting with five minutes per day and incrementally adding time, moving along. While doing the exercise, the slow process of building reading stamina can be explained to them by comparing it with building muscle.

Developing the habit of reading might not always involve reading dense texts. Comics and even jokes might be a good start to inculcate the habit. At this stage, it is very important to choose the material that they like to read and to keep applauding and celebrating every small win.

Telling stories to children also plays a critical component in building a child’s vocabulary. Stories have the power of building the sense of possibility and belonging. Stories give points of reference for children to establish connections with culture and can have valuable moral takeaways too.

Getting the children to build their math stamina

As far as math is concerned, it is advisable to follow through the school’s plan. It is very good if the child is able to adapt to the speed of the curriculum. In case if the child is facing difficulties in coping with the speed and finds it hard to cover everything, parents can focus on just making them practice some core math everyday. Math is essentially a skill that is better practiced frequently (as less as 10–15 min per day) rather than completing all in one day (and forgetting it by the next week).

For children resistant to mathematics, making them practice 10 minutes per day is better than not practicing at all. The ten minute practice on a daily basis is important in building the momentum. Parents must remember that it is more important to build the stamina than getting through with the learning material. Setting a timer for 10 minutes and observing how many problems the child is able to solve can be one of the initial exercises. The time can be gradually increased based on the child’s response to the activities.

Also, learning math is beyond just solving problems. It builds the child’s innate skills like critical judgement, problem solving, and inferring. Parents can also engage children in tasks that would make the child perform activities like measuring, counting, calculating, estimating, etc., Even small practical activities like asking them to tell the time or making them do a small budgeting activity can be great learning opportunities.

While staying indoors during lockdown, parents are practically juggling between two schedules — work and school activities of children. Herein, there can be multiple challenges in maintaining a healthy learning routine for the child. Yet some of the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy need not always come from a textbook. This sure is an unusual time with unusual challenges. But being mindful of such considerations would definitely help in tackling them more effectively.