Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the wave of changes it’s caused, there’s a lot we don’t know – especially where school is concerned. One thing we have learned from the summer slide is that, even in typical times, kids lose some academic progress when there is an extended break from school. With months of school shutdowns tacked onto the front of 2020’s summer vacation, there’s good reason for concern that children could fall even more behind in math, reading, and other subjects while waiting to return to the classroom. 

Countering Coronavirus Learning Loss

Despite all the uncertainty COVID has created, parents of school-age children don’t have to be paralyzed by worry. Concerned New York families can act now to ensure better outcomes for their kids. Thanks to hundreds of high-quality academic research studies, there are a few things we do know about what will really help kids recover from coronavirus learning loss. 

Research Offers Answers

While we must wait for answers to many questions about coronavirus, we already have a wealth of information about learning loss and how tutoring can help. Education researchers have been working to prevent students from falling behind, regardless of whether it’s due to summer break, learning challenges, lack of at-home support, or other causes. The results give us “Takeaways from Research on Tutoring to Address Coronavirus Learning Loss.” This article by The Hechinger Report is full of valuable insights, so we encourage all parents to read it. 

High Dosage Tutoring

What’s exciting to us here at FasTracKids is that, if you summarized the research and wrote a prescription for the best way to prevent coronavirus interrupting your child’s education, you’d get HDT: high dosage tutoring. Highly structured, daily tutoring in small groups has shown some of the strongest results of any available intervention. In addition to the amount of tutoring, the best results came from programs that begin with individual diagnostics and follow a sequential curriculum of proven strategies. Compared with HDT, once-a-week tutoring doesn’t even come close. According to one study, high-dosage tutoring was 20 times more effective than low-dosage tutoring in math and 15 times more effective in English!

New Virtual Summer Camps

If all this sounds like a tall order in today’s coronavirus climate, don’t be intimidated. The need for HDT is one that we are accustomed to filling at our FasTracKids Learning Centers, and we have designed both in-person and virtual camp experiences to give kids the structure and unique educational resources they need right now. New York parents can connect their kids access with high-dose tutoring, social interaction, ultra-qualified tutors, and learning disguised as fun through day camps our new FasTracKids Virtual Summer Camps! 

We will be offering 10 week-long sessions of each camp, with every week having a unique theme. In addition to the central STEAM or Creative Arts curriculum, each camp includes English and Math enrichment, during which there is a maximum 2:1 student to teacher ratio. Our programming is designed to also build soft skills like communication, collaboration, and creativity.

A Better Experience for Students

FasTracKids Virtual Summer Camps offer an hour of tutoring each day for children ages 5-9 and up to 90 minutes per day for children 7-13 so that they can sharpen their skills throughout the summer. Students get focused, individual attention when then need it, plus chances to work and interact with other kids. By rolling right from summer camp to FasTracKids tutoring or enrichment, your child will have an easier time transitioning back to (a very different) school after all the time off. Even better, your student will have the individualized support he or she needs to get back on track even if going back to school is difficult.

In-Person Day Camps!

For families hoping in-person camp would be a reality in 2020, there’s great news! As of June 29th, New York summer day camp programs are cleared to operate. We’ll be offering 10 week-long sessions of the FasTracKids Summer STE(A)M Adventure at locations throughout New York City starting June 29th and ending September 4th. Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 4 am, kids age 5-10 will explore explore the week’s theme, interact with our SmartBoard Learning Station, engage in role play, do arts and crafts, conduct experiments, improve their math and literacy skills, and have lots of free play time with their friends. Early and Extended Day Options (7:30am-6:30pm) for children ages 5-10 Years old will also be available.

Sign up today!

With FasTracKids, you can access right now what has been proven to work, and what experts and policymakers are pushing to make available to students and parents nationwide — without waiting for widespread change. FasTracKids Summer STE(A)M Academy or Virtual Summer Camp will eliminate uncertainty around learning loss and support your child through the road back to school. Multi-week discounts are available, and weeks don’t have to be consecutive. Sign up today for one, two, three weeks — or all ten!