Creative Writing Strategies to Halt Summer Learning Loss

When students take a break from the classroom during the summer months, the dreaded summer learning loss can often show its head. Research has shown that the learning loss maybe just a month or two from the knowledge they have gained from the previous school years or even up to half a year. 

 

However, with some planning, there are definitely things you can do to halt the summer learning loss in its tracks. The old saying that if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail is undoubtedly true in many instances. Don’t let this happen to your students. 

 

People often mistake the term literacy as just referring to reading. But literacy actually involves both reading and writing. Have you seen how kids write in their text messages? It can be downright frightening! And as educators that teach students how to correctly write essays and other papers know, if students are not always sharpening their writing skills, they can be lost just like anything else during the summer learning slide.

 

Through these activities, children can maintain or even improve upon their writing skills if you put them in place during those summer months.

 

Have Students Create a Blog

Everyone has a blog nowadays! Students can definitely write their own weekly blog on topics that matter to them. Who knows? It might just catch on and earn them some money down the road. The subject matter can deal with movies, music, books, cooking, video games, or anything else under the sun that matters to them. Their writing could become quite inspirational for others and even gain a worldwide audience. 

 

Anyone Can Write a Novel

The most challenging thing about writing a novel is sitting down and doing the writing day after day. And don’t think for a second that junior high and high school students can’t undertake this project. 

 

Christopher Paolini wrote his novel Eragon, a story about dragons, knights, and prophecies, and it was a monstrous hit when he was just 19 years old. S.E. Hinton wrote her to hit The Outsiders when she was only 16 years old. It is still a classic more than 50 years later. One of your students just might have the same ability as these two, but you won’t know it until you challenge them to write a novel during the summer. 

 

Write a Letter to a Dearly Departed Loved One

While this specific writing project may be geared more towards the older students, it should get their interest pretty quick. Everyone would love to sit down and have one more discussion with a loved one that has passed. Now is the time. Write a letter during the summer to someone you miss dearly or perhaps someone you have some unfinished business with. Something magical happens when you actually take the time to put things into words, and something like this could be therapeutic for those that need closure. If students have not experienced the loss of an individual that mattered to them, have them write to a pet that has passed on instead. 

 

Kids Can Get Published As Well

If you can get the kids excited enough about getting published, there are numerous opportunities for them. They could use the summer months to see not only if they can get published, but just how many times! There are countless magazines, books, newspapers, and websites out there around the globe that are always looking for exciting writers.

 

Being able to call themselves a professional author should make many of them interested in such a project. 

 

Don’t Forget the Other Subject Areas

Summer months can sink a student at the beginning of the next school year if they do not manage to stay up to date on the skills they have been learning year in and year out. If you don’t use these skills, you lose them. 

 

To help children maintain their knowledge or even get a head start on the next school year, iAchieve offers tutoring in all subject areas and grade levels. We can ensure your child is ready to advance through the next school year without any issues. It would make them feel great to be at the head of the class as the rest of the group is trying their best to play catch up. 

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