Really losing skills after a break.

[MistyMountain]

I know it is not a good idea to take time if but for various reasons we did end up taking the summer off. I know that all kids lose skills and some in particular really lose skills but right now I am seeing this in the extreme. I have a child who went from really strong in math conceptually and doing really well especially with mental math and a little above grade level skills to getting very simple concepts wrong. Like going from doing 3 digit by 1 digit multiplication with ease even working them out mentally plus long division was conceptually solid and the process down even if there were sometimes some mistakes to getting just regular multiplication and division problems wrong and it is not just in that one area . It is almost like 2 years if skills were lost.

 

Has this happen to anyone else? What did you do and how did it end up working out?

[regentrude]

That is exactly why we never took summers off from math. We always continued some light math over the summer, even though we took a break from school otherwise. I would imagine kids with special challenges need this continuity even more.

So, I'd plan for math year-round. The "lost" skills should come back faster than they were originally acquired, and then just keep going.

Edited September 15, 2017 by regentrude

[OneStepAtATime]

Yes it has happened.  We just started with review, in small pieces, I plastered a reassuring smile on my face, tried hard not to let them see me panicking, and we worked steadily back through the basics, starting at a point of success and moving forward at whatever pace they could manage without feeling completely overwhelmed.  Eventually it came back to them.

 

FWIW, I did the same thing when I went back to college (I already had a degree but I wanted to get into the Teacher's Certification program).  I had to pass a test that involved math I hadn't had in over 10 years.  I didn't seem to be able to recall ANYTHING.  A friend sat with me, went over things in small segments, we took breaks to laugh and move around, then went back at it. Eventually the cobwebs cleared away and I did well on the test.

 

ETA:  And just like regentrude, that is why after that happened twice with my kiddos we never took an entire summer off from math again.  Small math lessons done 3-4 days a week to keep things fresh really, really helped to keep from losing those skills.  I realize that is easier said than done and it can be really hard not to have a complete break from something but then having to start over is so draining I'd rather just force myself to keep math going through the summer.

Edited September 15, 2017 by OneStepAtATime

[OneStepAtATime]

And hugs.  Hang in there.  Just do some review.  Keep it as positive as possible.  Your kiddo is probably really discouraged and frustrated, too.  You don't want him to end up so discouraged he gets into a fight or flight response.  It will come back over time.

[Arcadia]

Public schools here buffer in two to three weeks of review before they ramp up the academics. Summer fog is well known not just for math but also for random grammar and spelling errors.

 

My younger boy takes about two weeks for review if he takes the summer off. Older boy won't survive summer without academics as he would be too mentally bored and then be hyper cranky about it.

 

Hang in there.

Edited September 15, 2017 by Arcadia

[OneStepAtATime]

Coming back to this to say that every class the kids were in when they attended Brick and Mortar had built in review for at least 2-3 weeks at the beginning of school each year because of summer learning loss.  It is absolutely normal.  However, the effect can be more profound in kids with learning challenges because their brains don't always transfer and maintain information very efficiently.  The material is easier to "lose" because the brain connections for recall were weaker to begin with.  Decay of those connections may start immediately and be so weak or even severed by the end of summer it is as if they never learned the material in the first place. 

 

Steady review should bring back a lot of it.  

[Lecka]

My younger son qualifies for Extended School Year with public school.

 

It is for kids who would lose skills in summer enough for it to be considered regression. I don't know how they consider it exactly but I have been told the same thing in two different states.

 

Basically kids still get 2-3 weeks off at the beginning and end of summer; but in the middle going to a program with review.

 

As an impression I think for many kids a two week break would be okay, and 6 weeks definitely too long.

 

Anyway I do think you could consider taking a few two week breaks and probably not worry!

 

Because I do think kids need some breaks and chances to have a different kind of day, if that would be enjoyable to them, and not too hard to transition back to the usual schedule.

[OneStepAtATime]

My younger son qualifies for Extended School Year with public school.

 

It is for kids who would lose skills in summer enough for it to be considered regression. I don't know how they consider it exactly but I have been told the same thing in two different states.

 

Basically kids still get 2-3 weeks off at the beginning and end of summer; but in the middle going to a program with review.

 

As an impression I think for many kids a two week break would be okay, and 6 weeks definitely too long.

 

Anyway I do think you could consider taking a few two week breaks and probably not worry!

 

Because I do think kids need some breaks and chances to have a different kind of day, if that would be enjoyable to them, and not too hard to transition back to the usual schedule.

This is what we normally do.  Two weeks off at the beginning of summer.  Two, sometimes 3 weeks off at the end of summer.   Sometimes a week off in the middle. We do light school work 3-4 days a week the rest of the time.  Right off the bat, so we don't forget.  Short sessions.  That still leaves the whole rest of the day for other things.

[MistyMountain]

I did review before starting but I guess I should have spent a little bit more time. I did know we would need to review but I should have done more. What is surprising is that it is not what we learned in the last year that needed reviewing as would be expected but even further back then that. I admit I am starting to panic. I feel like I can't even trust everything I thought was true. I started out patient and calm I am starting to not be so patient. I am not sure even where to go back to and how to move forward.

 

I like the idea of two week breaks at the beginning and end of the summer. The plan was to do just a little bit of work in the morning and have the rest of the day. We started that but there was a lot of complaining and once VT started up we needed a break because that was hard enough. Then I had some health things come up. I think a two week break will give a little break to relax before a lighter schedule for the summer.

 

There was a skill slide in spelling too but that seems to be coming back.

Edited September 15, 2017 by MistyMountain

[OneStepAtATime]

Oh, with VT in the mix AND health issues on your part then yeah, a total break may have been needed anyway.  And may be adding to the brain fog.  VT can be exhausting.  Don't panic.  This happens.  Take time to try and determine where the gaps are, fill them in, give you both some time to get back in a groove, and try to be as upbeat and positive as you can.  He will sense your stress and panic.  It will only make it harder to think.

 

Do you have assessment/placement tests you could administer?  Or a test from a previous level he could take just to see where there might be gaps?  Or good review problems from previous levels?

 

For instance with CLE the whole first light unit of each level is a review of the previous level.  I have the kids move through that at a more rapid rate (since we normally don't take much time off) and see if there are any gaps.  If so, we target those in short bursts before starting the regular light unit.

 

What I did with the kids was just really frankly sit down and talk with them about all the material they kept losing out of their heads with long summer breaks and how hard we had to work to reestablish that knowledge in the fall.  I then said I was not going to do that anymore.  We would commit to two weeks off at the beginning and end plus a one week break in the middle.  I showed them on the calendar when it was going to be.  I braced myself for whining when we started back up again but stuck to my guns (DD was actually happy to start again because she likes routine but DS...not so much).  The date on the calendar was set in stone (otherwise I would have waffled, too).  I keep lessons short, I get them out of the way quickly, and then we don't have anything hanging over our heads the rest of the day.

[Lecka]

She will get it back.  You might decide to have a bit more review in your math.  There are kids who forget things and need more of a spiral or review of old material. 

 

But the only way to see it is to have some panic moment!  But it is okay, she will remember.

 

It is okay to have a sign to review earlier topics some more. 

 

If it is just arithmetic -- I think that is pretty common.

 

I think it is less common to forget calendar, time, and money -- but my son's diagnosis (autism) is a bit notorious for forgetting those if they don't continue to be reviewed past an older age than for many kids. 

 

But she will get it back!

 

It has only been one day!  (Edit -- that you have realized maybe she needs more back review.... but it is okay, she will remember again, or re-learn it again!)  I think it would be really fine to review for 3 weeks to a month, and have it be really, really fine, especially if it helps your daughter to be more confident.

 

Some kids -- separately -- are sensitive and if they start forgetting a little then they are nervous and can't remember.  So then it can be important to have some nice comments on stuff that you know she will be successful with.

 

And end on success!  If you end on success it will be easier to start back the next day.

 

A positive attitude can do wonders, and a really good way to get a positive attitude is to have school work go well b/c it is something that she can do.

 

I think it depends on the kid, some kids really get bored and frustrated with "too easy."  But I think a lot of kids are happy to do "too easy" and have a nice math session, and it makes it less scary. 

 

It probably doesn't feel good to her either to forget, so try to be like a nice tutor getting paid $50/hour to work with somebody else's kid where you don't have the emotional investment.  A $50/hour tutor would manage to help her along and find some things she could do, when they were just getting started. 

 

Edit:  True story:  my son's therapy involved, at one time, memorizing types of animals, and then memorizing sub-types of animals like zoo animals, farm animals, jungle animals, ocean animals, maybe something else.

 

About two years later it came up ----- he didn't know farm animals anymore.  Now how do you forget farm animals??????? Well, he liked Diego a long time -- that covers a lot of jungle animals.  He like Octonauts a long time, that covers ocean animals.  We would go to the zoo -- that covered zoo animals -- as he would name ones we saw at the local zoo. 

 

But apparently I didn't expose him to farm animals?????????

 

But guess what -- He DID pick it back up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

I just felt like -- farm animals is so basic, it is so little-kid, how could he forget farm animals, isn't that the easiest one? 

 

Really "pets" is probably the easiest and he likes pets -- and we see pets -- and we go to pet stores sometimes -- but anyway..... it really is a bad feeling to seem like something so basic is lost and forgotten after it was known ----- but it is really not as bad as it seems! 

Edited September 16, 2017 by Lecka

[PeterPan]

My dd did that various times over the years when we'd take off from things, and she doesn't even have an SLD. I'm sorry it's exasperating. Little by little, you'll get it back. 

[MerryAtHope]

Sometimes you just need a break. Sorry it's painful getting back into things though. My oldest completely forgot how to write almost all letters between first and second grade, even though he'd been writing them since K. We spent 2 months working on making them automatic again. It was a long time before I tried more than a 6 week summer off again!

 

Anyway...it won't always be like this for your child, and it won't take forever to regain the knowledge. The "easiest" thing to do is just accept it. I know that's not easy, but the impatience largely comes from expecting it should be different--I found just "giving in" and saying, "okay, this is where we are, now let's get to work" helped.

 

Does your math program have placement tests? Maybe doing the tests for the last two grades would help you identify the gaps that exist right now, so that you could fill those in before restarting the program?

 

(((Hugs))) to you--I know it's not easy! 

[Lecka]

This is something too..... our school district used a math program that was really, really good for my older son. Really good. It was a mastery program. It was a really good fit for him.

 

My younger son cannot do mastery the same way. He will forget things even though 80% of kids using that program won't forget -- will just get natural review from using the curriculum and using the concepts will its own review for them.

 

My younger son's teacher told me all the struggling students in math were forgetting way, way more than they had with the previous math curriculum, even though for the school overall the new curriculum was better.

 

So they were adding in more review for struggling students and switching some to a spiral curriculum.

 

So ----- it is just one of those things that is too bad. Because maybe you are seeing more than just a summer loss. But at the same time ----- it will be okay, she can review! But some kids do need more intermittent review than others and that is okay too.

 

If she would be in any extra help type thing at public school I think they would just review more and not think a thing of it.

 

And that is a lot better than "keeping up" but having huge holes that just get bigger and bigger over time.

 

Ime.

 

There are parents who keep going just so their kids will be grade level, but they have to help so much and there isn't time to really re-teach old concepts. It is something people may choose for social reasons or they think it is better overall for their child's self-esteem. I think they can be right, too, knowing their own kid. But that is different in a public school where it can be a visible thing for a child to get extra help.

 

At home I think you don't have to worry about that.

[mellifera33]

We took a break this year. I thought that by playing math games several times a week we'd avoid the brain dump, but I should have remembered that ds doesn't generalize. After starting school back up I presented ds with a simple word problem--and he melted down. So we started going through the Singapore word problem book, several grades behind, relearning word problems. And guess what? By the third day he had it back. There is hope!

[Storygirl]

DS13 has a math disability (among other things). But it's a sneaky one. He did fine in younger years, learning everything. He did have trouble with attention and getting the work done, but he seemed to understand it, and he would get good grades on the tests. And we used CLE, which is spiral. But it was not enough review for him. The forgetting is an aspect of his disability.

 

It turns out that he can learn a math procedure and do it well enough to LOOK like he is grasping it. But really, underneath, he is not mastering it; he is just going through the steps. And then after a break, he has forgotten the steps and can't do it any more. And he doesn't generalize, so he can't do the same kind of math problem when it is presented in a different way (for example, on standardized tests), even if he is doing okay in his regular program.

 

He has forgotten time and money, for example. Especially because they are not continually practiced after second or third grade, when most kids have mastered it. He is generally very good about knowing math facts, but now that his math program at school does not do math fact drills, he has started to forget some of them.

 

He has forgotten how to do long division and multi-digit multiplication. His teachers kind of shrugged when I brought this up, saying that he will be getting to use a calculator more in older grades. But it's not really about having forgotten those specific things. Those things are symptoms of the underlying problem.

 

His intervention teacher understands and helps him review. His math teacher is good at adjusting the math teaching to DS's level (he is in a very small group math class), but I don't think the teacher really sees all of the holes. The teacher just sees that DS seems to be getting each week's material. I understand that perspective as a teacher, because when homeschooling, I didn't see the holes, either. When DS was diagnosed with his math LD, I was taken by surprise.

 

All that to say.... neurotypical kids tend to forget over the summer, as others have said. For kids with LDs, the forgetting can be more severe. And if you find that there are a lot of holes, and it doesn't come back very easily, I would document that. If he ever does enroll in school, it should be part of any possible IEP.  If the forgetting becomes a consistent problem, it could indicate a hidden disability. Sometimes these things don't become apparent until the later grades.

 

(Not to cause worries, just something to keep in mind).

[Storygirl]

When I say DS's LD is sneaky, it's because it looks like this:  DS can get all of the answers right on his weekly math quizzes all year long. So it looks great to the teacher!!

 

But he bombs standardized tests. And when he was tested by the school for his IEP, he scored in the absolute bottom across the board for all of math. His disability is severe. And yet he can still get As and Bs on his weekly work.

 

It's wonky, and it's tricky to understand.

 

Not that your child has this kind of issue. Just sharing.