What is Covid slide ad how to prevent its effects?- Ottawa, ON, Canada

Among senior level educators and education researchers there is talk about Covid slide. What is this? As I started looking it up, there are studies out there by researchers that look at the regression of a student’s education during the summer months. [6] When students are off school and not in a classroom learning, they are recharging and learning in other ways, but some material in subjects get lost during the summer months. This is normal. The goal is to minimize this and get students back on track as soon as possible at the start of the school year, in September, here in North America. However, with the recent social distancing restrictions, closure of classrooms, at home and online learning, the waiving of formal testing at the elementary and high school level, this two month, summer vacation regression of knowledge has turned into a 6 month regression or Covid-19 Slide.

There is some interesting research and graphical representation of what could possibly be the effect of the school closures during this time of Covid-19. [1] Mathematics and reading are shown to be greatly affected by the summer slide. With a 70% retention of reading after the summer vacation and only a 50% retention of mathematics after the summer vacation. [1] The potential for a fall less retention rate after the closures due to Covid-19 are very likely. There are a couple of great figures from nwea research in their April 2020 brief, The COVID-19 slide: What summer learning loss can tell us about the potential impact of school closure on student academic achievement, by Dr. Megan Kuhfeld, Dr. Beth Tarasawa, [1] that I have included below and want to reference as completely as possible.

Covid slide projectios

Mathematics Forecast

The first figure, Figure 1, Mathematics forecast, shows a typical school, the current school year with a Covid slowdown and the current school year with a Covid Slide. The information is for grades 3-8. This is when a lot of learning and growth takes place and where the foundation for further learning both in depth and breadth in high school takes place. The solid lines are for a typical school year and summer vacation. The dashed lines are for this current school year with covid closures and a “covid slowdown”.

As we look at the lines, we can infer information. We can see that the Covid slowdown is the optimistic outcome where all knowledge acquired up until the time of school closures in March, none has been lost. The dotted lines are again for this current school year with covid school closures but with a “covid slide”. Here we see that the regression of knowledge is immediate from the time of school closure and continues downwards; in some cases down to the previous grade level. While the downward slope is less steep as the grade level increases, so is the gain in knowledge from the previous grade level.

Reading Forecast

Figure 2 is the Reading forecast. This is also not a terribly positive outlook but not as bleak as it is for mathematics. We haven’t found anything regarding high school and how it will be affected by the Covid school closures but I’m sure there will be deficits in knowledge here come September 2020.

Figure 2 is the Reading forecast. This is also not a terribly positive outlook but not as bleak as it is for mathematics. We haven’t found anything regarding high school and how it will be affected by the covid school closures but I’m sure there will be deficits in knowledge here come September 2020.

Rather than focus on all the potential loss in knowledge that in many ways in inevitable, looking forward on how to counteract and minimize this loss is important.

Ways to counter act the summer slide

Some ways to counteract the summer slide for younger students can be built into everyday life throughout the summer vacation. For reading it can be as simple as incorporating reading into your child’s daily routine throughout the summer months. Finding a series of books at their reading level that they can get through. Mathematics is another area that is affected greatly by the summer slide. The reason for this is that many of the basic and fundamental skills of numeracy are learnt in the early year and need to be practiced regularly. These are skills we use in everyday life, our arithmetic skills, problem solving. These can all be done throughout the day, with a little imagination on the parent or the child’s guardian during the summer months. [6]

While social distancing, face masks, closing of “non-essential” business were all towards an effort to “flatten the curve” and lesson the immediate effect of the coronavirus, we want to help minimize and possible eliminate the sides effects of these efforts, the primary one being education or the lack of over the past few months. The next posts will provide more ways to help prevent the covid slide over the next few months before September 2020 and the new school year starts. We will offer examples, tips, resources and more.