Year-Round Schooling Helps Students Recall Sine and Cosine

September 7, 2010 

The busy first days of a new school year often lead students to wistfully reflect on their long, relaxing summer breaks, but for those who have had an unstructured summer, the time away from the classroom works against them, according to new research. 

The busy first days of a new school year often lead students to wistfully reflect on their long, relaxing summer breaks, but for those who have had an unstructured summer, the time away from the classroom works against them, according to new research. 

Harris Cooper, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, found that after three months of lost learning, past material must be retaught at the start of each new year to make up for the hiatus. 

 “What kids forget most is those subjects in which repetition plays an important role, like language classes and mathematics,” Cooper said. The losses, he noted, especially affected students of low-income backgrounds, who usually don't experience museums, summer camps, travel, and other forms of stimulation during summer. 

Cooper is the author the monograph Making the Most of Summer School and the book The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. 

His meta-study, a statistical compilation of preceding research on the issue, proposed “year-round” schooling, whereby students get three weeks time off for every nine weeks in the classroom. The new schedule, he said, results in a “small positive effect” on learning for all students—and a “larger effect for students of poorer backgrounds.” 

Five Chicago high schools like the idea. They began year-round schooling last month. Read the full story here.   

Source: The Duke Chronicle (September 1, 2010); Chicago Sun Times (August 5, 2010)