How Do I Combat the "Summer Slide"?

"17 to 34% of what was learned last school year is expected to be lost between May and September."

Today we're talking about "The Summer Slide", a term that refers to the documented decrease in reading ability over the summer months, when kids are not being made to read or do homework.

To combat this, we've prepared a couple of summer reading programs, to strengthen their visual skills: The 4D Built to Read program is recommended to address foundational visual skills necessary for reading, and the 4D Summer Boot Camp is recommended for those who have already completed vision therapy.

The importance of maintaining visual skills to prevent decline and ensure children are ready for the next school year, is crucial...and that's why we're here for.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

(01:15) The tools we can provide.
(06:20) How the 4D Built to Read Program can help kids retain their reading progress.(12:01) Discovering the global Digital 4D Summer Boot Camp.

We recommend giving this paper a read: School's Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities

Check out our Digital Programs

• 4d Built to Read Digital Program
• Concussion Recovery
• Built to Drive

Follow us at 4D Vision Gym on Facebook and Instagram @4dvisiongymvt for the latest news and updates. DM us if you have any Vision Therapy related questions - you may hear the answer in a future episode!

If you enjoyed this show, please rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We really appreciate your support!
Send us a screenshot of your review and receive 10% off any one of our 4D Vision Gym products or services. And if your friends or family are experiencing inexplicable challenges, refer them to this podcast and tell them, “It Could Be Your Eyes.”  

Transcript

Dr. Juanita Collier: Welcome to the It Could Be Your Eyes podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Juanita Collier. Through my decades of work in the field of vision, I have met thousands of patients, parents, educators, therapists, and doctors searching for solutions to the seemingly unsolvable. Challenging traditional medicine's new normal?

We'll uncover that the root cause isn't necessarily what you thought it might be. It could be your eyes.

Hi and welcome back to It Could Be Your Eyes. I'm your host Dr. Juanita Collier and I have my co host Jessica Liedke with me and today we are talking all about the infamous summer slide and how to really prepare our kiddos for the summer so that their reading skills don't drop but also how to give them the visual skills that they need for that next year when they make up for any skills that did drop over the summer and really be able to take on the new school year.

So let's start by talking about what the summer slide is. 

Jessica Liedke: Essentially, it's documented that most kids drop in their reading ability over the summer. And it's not part of their routine. They're not being made to read or do any of their math homework or anything like that. So 17 to 34% of what was learned last year, last school year is expected to be lost between May and September.

Dr. Juanita Collier: And that's crazy. Huge. And so, you know, when we're thinking about that, that's for kiddos between 1st and 8th grade. So, that's where our children fall. I have one going into kindergarten, but the rest of them are, you know, between 1st and 8th grade. Actually, just 1st and 7th grade. And yours is going into 1st grade, 2nd grade as well... to think that they're going to lose up to 34% of what they learned last year. Like my daughter made such great gains in reading and I kind of saw it last year. And you know, some of it was like, we had like a different teacher situation and all that stuff. But you know, she's been like on this steady, steady incline here. And so to think that she might be losing some of those skills was a little bit staggering for me. 

Jessica Liedke: Yeah, I definitely have noticed it this year where I'm like getting a little nervous starting to think about okay we need to get a little bit more regimented in practicing these skills again because same thing my son was making great gains and then end of school year happened and he's not been in the same routine and I'm starting to, to see it a little bit more. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Yeah, so my daughter was expected to read 20 minutes a day, every day, including weekends during the school year. And now she reads. In order to delay her bedtime, but um other than that, I'm not really kind of forcing the issue that much.

Jessica Liedke: Right and and the summer reading program at our our local library has been great because my son is very regimented and we need to read today because I need to get my bead for the summer reading program, but you can read to me.

It still counts. It says so right here. So at least he's reading enough to know that if I read to him, it counts. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I remember when I was little, we used to get, like, pizza hut, like, personal pan pizzas. So, like, every book report that you wrote, you got a personal pan pizza. I'm like, well, maybe we need to, like, incorporate something like that in my house, but you know, I don't know., I also don't want them eating that either. It's like, ew, who gets extra broccoli tonight?

So when we're looking at the summer slide, just a little bit more about the statistics there. That study actually looked at millions of children between grades. one and eight. And the real basis of the story is they were looking to see if it had to do with socioeconomic status and race. And what they saw is that only accounted for 4% of that decline.

So we're looking at really how much are our kiddos reading and how are they practicing those skills? And also, obviously, we're looking at it from a visual perspective. And what's going on with their visual systems that might be contributing to these numbers. Since we opened, we knew that the summer slide was a thing.

And so, , for the past 10 years, we've done a summer boot camp for our graduates every single year to make sure that their visual systems were strong enough for the next school year that was coming. Because we know that when you do vision therapy, that increases your visual skills that are necessary for reading.

And when that happens, kiddos are more likely to voluntarily read. And when you're voluntarily reading over the summer, that's what, you know, the studies are showing that actually keeps your reading skills where they should be. And sometimes there's even an acceleration in progress. So those kiddos who are reading and reading and reading and reading over the summer actually end up doing really well.

However, If your visual system is not functioning the way that it's supposed to, that's going to be a hard sell for parents to get their kiddos to voluntarily read and over the summer, where parents like, it just seems like these days fly by, and then the weekends we're trying to like do fun things and entertain them and everything and it's just a lot to try to really structure yourself in that way. And, you know, I know that some of our teacher moms do like camp mom, where, where, you know, they have essentially summer school all summer, but I'm not, not a camp mom kind of lady. 

Jessica Liedke: So there's still the part of me that has that like, well, I want summer to be fun and unstructured, you know, like I, I remember summers as a kid and like, it was going outside and playing.

It was like. Lazy days, and it was okay to just relax and not have that regiment. And I probably had a summer slide or two or three or I don't know how many that's the thing,

Dr. Juanita Collier: but what we do see with our kiddos is that September is hard. Yeah. And October is even harder. And that's when, at least in Connecticut, that's when progress reports come out.

And every single year in the middle of October, we get slammed with patients because the teachers are reporting that their visual assistants are not handling the new workload. And it works. What we really kind of wanted to get ahead of at 4D Vision Gym is how do we prepare these kiddos to one, not have a slumber slide or not have as severe of a slumber slide, but to also have the visual skills necessary for that next year.

And so as I said, in our office, we had a program for our patients who had graduated already to make sure that their skills are like there and ready to go for the new workload that's coming. But then we had some people who aren't in our office and still want to repair their kiddos visual systems and some of them maybe have never even done vision therapy before.

So for those patients, we have our 4D Built to Read program. 

Jessica Liedke: Because, you know, 4D Built to Read really addresses the foundational visual skills that are necessary for reading. So if you've never done vision therapy before, you know, you don't know what kind of visual system you're really working with, but chances are if we're having kind of a harder time reading or we know that the demand is going to increase exponentially within this next school year, at least we know that the foundational visual skills are there and that foundation is firm so that you can increase the demand, increase the amount that you're reading, increase the length that you're reading, the computer hours, all of that stuff that get thrown at our kids every year. You know that at least visually they're ready to take on that demand. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I think that the big thing to think about with that is that, There are a lot of vision therapy practices, you know, and most of them are working on a specific diagnosis, so have your eye exam, and they come up with two to five diagnoses about what's going on with your child's visual system, you do exercises aimed at correcting those visual diagnoses, and then, specifically, exactly, and then you're good to go.

Now, there are quite a few kiddos that have vision issues that are negatively impacting academics. That one, it never make it to a behavioral optometrist, and two, even if they do, their visual skills might not be so severely impacted that they need actual in office vision therapy. Right. We know that vision is the foundation of reading because without vision and appropriate eyesight, it's really hard to read.

And so this program is great because it helps every single child who needs to read, which would be every single child. And so my children have done the built to read exercises and they don't have like a , formal diagnosis. And even with my daughter who... when she started to read, she started to have some difficulties with her eye teaming.

Those have been completely corrected, but we still do the exercises so that her visual system is strong enough for her to read at the level that she is right now. You know, she's going into second grade, but she's reading at the third, fourth grade level. So that's a lot of stress on her little visual system that can't really handle it.

So, you know, we make sure that we're kind of doing drills where she's really working those eye muscles because I'm not going to limit how much she's able to read because her visual system isn't old enough. What I'm going to do is make her visual system stronger so it can handle her reading. And that's really that preparation that helps kiddos feel like they have that strong foundation, actually that they do have that strong foundation.

So even if you don't necessarily think that your child has a vision issue, built to read will help them. 

Jessica Liedke: Exactly. And we've even seen that from other parents who knew that there was like a visual issue, but they didn't necessarily see it in like an academic stance, right? Like they came in and all their concern was, oh, blurry vision or whatever, and then they did build to read and then everything was better. They didn't realize how much better academics could be. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Exactly. Like we had one kiddo who came in because her dance teacher was concerned that her balance wasn't what it should be. And she was an avid reader.

She did really, really well academically. She was very competitive. And she did vision therapy and everything kind of took off from there. So it's like, well, how do you go from amazing to like even more amazing, but she did because you can exactly because she was compensating and yeah, she had the skills to be able to compensate.

But. I think as parents, we don't want our kiddos to have to compensate for something that's physical that we could correct. 

Jessica Liedke: Exactly. 

If you could make a positive change in your child's reading ability and confidence with reading in just 20 minutes a day, you would jump at the opportunity, right? Of course you would.
The 4D Built to Read program trains you, the parent, to become a junior vision therapist and provides you with tools, activities, and support you need to give your child a strong visual foundation so they can read, play, and take on whatever challenges they face. 
If your child is too bright to be struggling and getting low grades, or you've been told that in-office vision therapy would help, but you just can't find the time to commit, the 4D Built to read program may be just what you're looking for at a fraction of the cost.

Visit 4D built to read.com or check out the show notes for a link to learn more. 

So then we also have our digital 4D summer boot camp, which is digital for the first time this year. We've always done it in person with our graduates. And now we're able to offer that online for those who do have a vision therapy background and now just know, okay, this new year's coming up.

Maybe I haven't been doing my exercises every day or as much of those drills that you were talking about, Dr. Collier, but I know I need to shore them up. I need to get ready for this. So that's what the the boot camp is for. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I think that it's really important because after you do an office vision therapy, you know, the parents that who are listening who have done an office vision therapy, it's intense.

It's an intense regimen that your child is going to, you know, between one and three times a week for months on end. And then you're practicing at home. And then when you graduate, it's like this kind of like, huh, I never have to do that again. However, with any other neuromuscular training that you're doing, any sort of exercise that you're doing, if you stop using those skills appropriately, and you fall back into old habits, then some of those skills can decrease.

And We want to make sure that, you know, that doesn't happen because after this huge time investment and energetic investment and financial investment, you want to make sure that those skills are there to say, and you know, summer bootcamp is fun because it's only six weeks long and you're like really just working those muscles in a fun way that's just making sure that everything that you spent all of that investment on is maintaining itself and that your kiddos are ready for that next school year without needing to wait for symptoms to start again.

Jessica Liedke: Exactly. And you know, we try to make it fun, keep it fun with like, okay, go, go, go, go. If you time yourself, how fast can you do this? You know, it's, it's challenging. It's, it's bootcamp. If you think about, you know, obviously there's army bootcamp or whatever, but you even think about like bootcamp gym classes.

That's it's but in a fun way, intense in a competitive, no pressure sort of way. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Exactly. It's not a skill building program. This this program is for people who have already gone through vision therapy who already have all the skills and we're just, you know, making sure that everything is at that a plus top notch level ready for you know, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade.

And these are the years where, you know, things are just moving so quickly and we want to make sure their visual foundation is there. If we want to do skill building, on the other hand, then we do have the 4D built to read program where you're actually developing these foundational skills. So we kind of have programs for both sets of kiddos because that's two different avenues that they're taking to kind of get to the same goal, but that's really what we're working on when it comes to preventing that summer slide and getting kids ready for that next year because as parents, you don't want to see your child decline 30%.

You know, so when you go into that next school year, and they do that first reading evaluation, and they ended first grade at, you know, that end of first grade, beginning of second grade level, and then they start second grade at the beginning of first grade level or middle of first grade level, that's heartbreaking.

And we've seen our parents struggle with that. And we really developed these programs so that that was not going to be, you know, an issue anymore. And we're happy to say that with our patients at 4D. That isn't what's happening. We know that the 4D method and how we approach vision and visual development and visual foundation has, has been proven to prevent these things and really get that visual system going.

So we're just so happy that we can offer it not only to our, our patients in Connecticut, but also, you know, offer it digitally. to people around the world who, who can't get to Cheshire, Connecticut in a snap. But you know, we, we really, um, have been able to figure out our method and really have that broken down in a way that parents can kind of just have this tool at their fingertips, which has been life changing for many.

Jessica Liedke: Exactly. So if a parent is considering one of these options, What do they need to do? Give us a call. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Mail, text, anything. 

Jessica Liedke: You know, exactly. Visit our website 4dvisiongym. com and uh, 4dbuilttoread. com. Just get in touch and we'll get you ready for this school year. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Yes. That's all we want ,right? For our kiddos to be ready for that next school year and to feel confident going into it.

So exactly. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and we hope to see you all on Built to Read. 

Jessica Liedke: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the It Could Be Your Eyes Podcast.To schedule an appointment with Dr. Collier, visit us@4dvisiongym.com. To train your vision at home, visit us at 4D vision therapy@home.com. Rate and review our podcast and email a screenshot to receive 10% off a new evaluation or any of our digital programs. Subscribe to join us for more eye-opening episodes as we dive deep into all the ways that it could be your eyes.