Is the “summer slide” a myth?

New research published in Education Next  says that previous research indicating a loss of learning during summer months may not be true.

Researcher Paul T. von Hippel, of the University of Texas at Austin, says he now doubts if students lose months of skills each summer or if a ninth grade achievement gap can be based on the cumulative effect of not studying during the summer while students are in elementary school.

The original research showing a “summer slide” was done on students in Baltimore in the 1980s.  But von Hippel says the testing methods used then tended to distort student reading scores.  He and his colleagues tried to replicate part of the 1980 study and could not, leading him to question the conclusion of that study.

He said that soon after the study was reported, faults were found in it, but they somehow became forgotten over time.

Von Hippel said that a researcher could achieve any gap desired by asking certain questions.

Does this mean that over the summer students remember all that they learned during the past year?  Not necessarily.  But better research, the kind which can be replicated, must be done to say if the summer slide is real and to what extent learning is lost or retained.