Research shows that teachers spend as much as six weeks each fall reviewing skills that were lost over the summer. Families can help their children stay sharp--and ahead of the curve in the fall--by practicing skills like reading and math during the summer months.

"If we can eliminate the summer gap, we can close the long-standing achievement gap between richer and poorer kids," said Richard Allington, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee and past president of the International Reading Association. "Basically, even poor kids grow reading skills at about the same rate as middle-class kids, when they are in school." he said. "Two-thirds of the achievement gap occurs during the summers, not during the school year."

Traditional outlets, such as free summer schools programs, are being slashed in some areas of the country to help balance strained budgets. This has left parents scrambling, not only for day care for younger children, but also for options to ensure their children don't fall behind.

"How to Make the Most of Summer" offers eight suggestions to keep your child learning, most of which are low-cost or free. One of my favorites is practicing math daily by tracking the daily temperature, measuring things around the house, and cooking (a great way to learn fractions). Other suggestions include participating in free library summer programs and making time to read every day; taking educational trips to local parks, museums, and zoos; and preparing for fall by previewing concepts and materials with your child. 

The Family Education website offers a plan for Reluctant Readers. With headings such as The Basics, Participate, Analyze, and Involve the Whole Family, the site provides detailed suggestions to keep that reluctant reader at your house reading during the summer months.

Subscribers to our own Raz-Kids website can use the site all summer long. For example, teachers shouldn't delete students until the fall. For summer reading, they can place them on the self-paced track and students will then be assigned all the books at their current reading level. The current teacher name and student icon/password will work all summer.

Subscribers to Reading A-Z have access to thousands of leveled books for students. Teachers might select books and print out a book list. Students can select the books they'd like to read, and classroom volunteers can assemble book packets for the students to take home for summer reading. Our Teacher's Corner offers summer reading contracts.

In January I asked, "Are We Testing Students Too Much?" and in March I blogged about "The Testing Debate." Comments from readers suggest that yes, we are testing students too much, but it's the best system we have to evaluate student learning. There has to be a better way of assessing our students, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has a plan.

Education Week reports that Duncan has earmarked $350 million of the "Race to the Top" fund to help states develop common academic assessments. It's expensive to develop tests of this nature--too expensive for most states to do on their own--which is why Duncan wants the federal government to pay for a test all states can use.

The timing is good and supports the effort led by the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop common national standards to be shared amongst all states.

I think people will always debate the subject of testing--types, frequency, and interpretation. But since we're likely to continue testing in some form or fashion, the tests should be of the highest possible quality and the most effective at accurately assessing student performance. Besides, a single test will prevent some states from creating less rigorous tests in order to demonstrate progress over time, and it would also allow us to have a more accurate picture of state-to-state comparisons.

When is it, exactly, that students who drop out of school disengage from education?

Granted, the process happens over a period of years, but when does it start? Teacher Magazine's recent article shares evidence that for many, the process begins just after the fourth grade, when our students are just 10 years old.

Lynne Strathman, director of a small alternative program for dropouts in Illinois, says her students consistently tell her that the last time they felt successful was in the fourth grade. How sad!  John Stack, administrator of an alternative school for young people aged 16-22 in Ohio, says students typically enroll at his school at a fourth-grade reading level.

Of course poor grades and difficulty learning are only two of the reasons kids disengage. This article also looks at bright kids who become bored when unchallenged, students with chaotic family lives or mental illness, and teens that become pregnant. Frequently students who drop out have more than one risk factor.

High school graduates tend to earn more than dropouts, enjoy better health, and live longer. Try telling that to a teenager who doesn't care. It's up to educational professionals to find ways to keep students engaged and interested in learning.

Schools can't control a student's chaotic family life, but they can, to some degree, control the educational tools--like differentiated instruction--used to ensure that students are being taught at a level appropriate to their abilities. Let's work to eliminate learning difficulties and boredom from the risk factors for dropping out.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I am a big supporter of differentiated instruction. The Learning A-Z family of websites provides differentiated materials for students, as well as lesson plans and assessments that teachers can use to help differentiate instruction in their classrooms. In fact, the motivation for creating our websites was the need to address the diverse learning styles and levels of students in the typical classroom. Teachers need lots of choices if they are going to meet the individual needs of their students--we all know that one size does not fit all.

Teacher Magazine recently hosted an online discussion with Carol Tomlinson, noted authority on differentiated learning. Professor Tomlinson addressed a number of issues, including steps teachers can take with small-group instruction, professional development to properly prepare teachers for the challenges of differentiating instruction, differentiated assessment, roadblocks to differentiation, and differentiation with ELL students. I particularly liked her "big look fors" in a differentiated classroom. Some of the "big look fors" that I found particularly important were: a teacher who clearly values and relates to the kids as individuals and as a group; a class that functions as a team; the use of frequent assessment to monitor student learning; and teaching up--a high ceiling of expectations in the classroom.

I know many teachers who have successfully incorporated differentiated instruction on their own, but I also know that proper training can help flatten the learning curve and mitigate some of the challenges faced with differentiated instruction. So I implore administrators: support your teachers' professional development. Differentiated instruction is hard work, but the gains in student learning are worth it. I hope our resources are helping, and I hope you will let me know if there are other resources we can and should provide.

All too often, kids are taught the result of other people's thinking and are not taught to think for themselves. A program called BioKIDS  at 22 Detroit schools hopes to change that by teaching fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders complex scientific reasoning skills. Students will learn to explain, predict, and pose scientific arguments based on evidence, and apply conclusions to new contexts.

This Detroit district has struggled with low test scores, high dropout rates, and job losses from the auto industry. But on a recent April day, students were darting around their urban playground, turning rocks over, and digging in the patchy grass. They returned to their classroom with a collection of worms, centipedes, slugs, and other bugs. Over the next days, the students examined their collection, documented their observations, and presented their findings to the class. They will learn to divide the schoolyard into zones and acquire the vocabulary needed to study the biodiversity in their corner of Detroit.

Results so far have been promising: at the 22 participating schools, science scores on the state exam have risen. Individual students are also getting higher grades on tests of their science-reasoning abilities.

Programs like this and our own Science A-Z work because they combine multiple powerful learning methods. Students touch, observe, discuss, and question. Rather than being taught the answer, students are taught how to find the answer.

Back in the day, the three "Rs" were taught at school: Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic.

Part of 'Riting in those days was penmanship, and children spent as much as forty-five minutes a day practicing. Over the years, penmanship has taken a back seat to other lessons and today is practiced, on average, less than ten minutes a day. Yet in my local paper the other day was a cute article about first-grader Cole Kipling, who will represent the state of Arizona in a national penmanship competition. His teacher said that Cole has perfectionist tendencies no matter the subject, but the boy said the reason he practices his penmanship is that "people need to read your handwriting."

Smart boy.

Many experts believe that handwriting is key to learning. Emily Knapton, director of program development at Handwriting Without Tears, believes that "when kids struggle with handwriting, it filters into all their academics. Spelling becomes a problem; math becomes a problem because they reverse their numbers. All of these subjects would be much easier for these kids to learn if handwriting was an automatic process." In fact, Newsweek reported that a 2007 study by Vanderbilt University showed that most primary-school teachers believe that students who wrote easily and legibly turned in more work as well as work of a higher caliber, leading to better grades.

While many of us may lean toward using the keyboard for letters and memos, handwriting remains important. After all, just because we have calculators doesn't mean we don't need to learn math. At the simplest level,  handwriting is an effective and inexpensive recording and communication method. It can provide a connection to historical documents and diaries, and, in the case of a power outage, may be a crucial means of communication. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, medical orders and records were written out by hand. While I don't believe students need to spend hours mastering the Spencerian curlicues made famous in the Coca-Cola logo, I certainly hope that students learn to read and write legibly and easily.

In a recent blog, I talked about librarians for the digital age. Now there's a library for the digital age.

Four years ago, James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, had the idea of making the world's cultural treasures--rare books, manuscripts, maps, drawings, films, and sound recordings--easily accessible through a website.

He felt that the world's treasures should be available to everyone. Other nations agreed, and on April 21, 2009, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) launched the World Digital Library. Roughly 1,200 artifacts from North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Oceania are available at the click of a mouse.

I felt as if I were in the world's most interesting library as I wandered from continent to continent, exploring treasures like the 1507 Map of the Entire World, the 1403 Yongle Encyclopedia from China, and the 1493 Columbus Manuscript.

The website contains images of prehistoric rock paintings, a late-1800s recording of the French national anthem "La Marseillaise," oracle bones from 1200 B.C. inscribed with ancient text about the seasons and equinoxes, and examples of early Persian poetry.

I was inspired by my first visit to the World Digital Library. What a great resource for older students, as well as students looking for a greater challenge, to have access to source documents for the studies of history, geography, art, language, science, and astronomy. I look forward to seeing this digital collection grow.

Met Life just released its twenty-fifth-anniversary "view of education" survey conducted by Harris Interactive. A total of 902 students, 1000 teachers, and 502 principals from public schools were surveyed. One thing has remained consistent--most teachers are committed to and love teaching. But I was rather surprised at the change in many of the responses between 2009 and 1984, the year of the first survey. I think you may be as well.

The survey's good news indicates that more teachers feel respected by society, recognized for what they do, and adequately paid for their work. Student results indicate that they trust their teachers more and say that a teacher's interpersonal skills are what make them good. The not-so-good news is that urban teachers, principals, and students have a much more negative view of education than their suburban counterparts.

I thought you might be interested in some of the major findings, so here they are. Note the differences between 1984 and 2008. If you want to drill more deeply into the survey, go to survey. But be forewarned--it's a 191-page download.

• Fewer teachers today value standardized tests as a means of improving instruction.
•  A majority of teachers are very satisfied with their careers--40% in 1984 compared with 62% in 2008.
• A majority feel that their job pays them a decent salary--37% in 1984 compared with 66% in 2008.
• More teachers would recommend teaching as a career to their students--45% in 1984 compared with 75% in 2008.
• Twice as many teachers rate the availability of materials as good--22% in 1984 compared with 44% in 2008.
• 90% of teachers say technology enhances their teaching.
• 57% of teachers and 51% of principals rate student global awareness as fair to poor.
• More teachers rate school curriculum as good--81% in 1984 compared with 89% in 2008.
• Most teachers report students come to school prepared for grade-level instruction--44% in 1984 compared with 54% in 2008.
• In reading, more suburban teachers rate their students from excellent to good than urban teachers--61% for urban compared with 81% for suburban.
• In math, more suburban teachers rate their students from excellent to good than urban teachers--53% for urban compared with 76% for suburban.
• 43% of teachers say they never connect online with teachers outside their district.
• 72% of teachers say they have never written, read, or responded to an online blog. I guess those of you reading this fall in the 28% who do.

After reading a sampling of the response findings, would you have answered in the same way? I am confused that, while I constantly read and hear in the news about how poorly U.S. students are performing compared to their counterparts in other countries, by and large today's teachers believe that students are doing better than they were twenty-five years ago.

The first round of monies from the education stimulus package was freed up earlier this month, and some reports, to my dismay, indicate a feeding frenzy over the funds.

Education Week reports that while the funds are intended to supplement and support existing school district budgets, some cash-strapped governors and legislative officials are arguing that they should cut millions from their education budgets and use the federal funds to fill in the gap. The freed-up money would be used for other purposes. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan fired this warning shot: "If states are doing things that are not in the best interests of children, they are going to disqualify themselves and take themselves out of the running for billions of dollars."

You tell 'em, Arne.

The digital age is breeding a new kind of school librarian--a librarian who believes that literacy includes, but also exceeds, books. A shining example of this new librarian is Stephanie Rosalia, a librarian at Public School 225 in Brooklyn.