San Francisco Summer Learning Network: Resource for free or cheap books

A summer without enrichment is a summer with learning loss

“Deprived of healthy stimulation, millions of low-income kids lose a significant amount of what they learn during the school year. Call it 'summer learning loss,' as the academics do, or 'the summer slide,' but by any name summer is among the most pernicious — if least acknowledged — causes of achievement gaps in America's schools. Children with access to high-quality experiences can exercise their minds and bodies at sleep-away camp, on family vacations, in museums and libraries and enrichment classes. Meanwhile, children without resources languish on street corners or in front of glowing screens. By the time the bell rings on a new school year, the poorer kids have fallen weeks, if not months, behind. …

"And what starts as a hiccup in a 6-year-old's education can be a crisis by the time that child reaches high school. A major study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University concluded that while students made similar progress during the school year, regardless of economic status, the better-off kids held steady or continued to advance during the summer — while disadvantaged students fell back. By the end of grammar school, low-income students had fallen nearly three grade levels behind. By ninth grade, roughly two-thirds of the learning gap separating income groups could be blamed on summer learning loss.”

-- Time Magazine, "The Case Against Summer Vacation," Aug. 2, 2010

San Francisco Summer Learning Network

SFKids: Activities and enrichments galore

Friday, April 8, 2011

Resource for free or cheap books

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