If you’re the parent of an elementary school or middle school student, you’ve no doubt noticed that the first two to three weeks of every school year are spent reviewing material 
learned during the previous year. Summer brain drain is a proven fact. Researchers have found that the average child loses from one to three months of core academic skills over the summer with math skills taking the biggest hit. Horizon Education Center is here to prevent this loss.
According to a University of Missouri study, ALL children lose some math skills over summer vacation; most likely, study researchers concluded, because parents are less tuned in to math than reading. Reading, from cereal boxes to street signs to bedtime stories, is likely to already be part of a family’s daily routine. Math, however, seems to fly under parents’ radar. Parents are less likely to see opportunities to reinforce math skills in daily life. The same is true of spelling skills which take the second biggest hit over the summer. Without a weekly spelling list to practice, few parents think to review spelling skills with their children.
Parents can do something about the loss of academic skills over the summer. The Missouri study found that summer learning programs, such as the Horizon Education Centers’ 21st Century Community Learning Center programs for children ages 6 to 12, can limit summer brain drain so that children return to school in the fall with their skills largely intact. In the Missouri study, children from middle-class families were found to reap the greatest rewards from attending summer learning programs.
