From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
MONTGOMERY — For Alabama’s students, the months away from school can result in a large loss of knowledge in reading, math, science, and other core subject matter.
“For the sixth year, The Alabama State Department of Education is committed to minimizing the summer slide by providing resources that encourage continuous learning opportunities,” says Dr. Barbara Cooper, Deputy Superintendent.
The Alabama Summer Learning Challenge offered by the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE), Lexile, and Fuel Education, raises awareness of the summer loss epidemic, shares research on the importance of personalized activities, and provides access to a variety of free resources to target summer learning.
The Lexile-based “Find a Book, Alabama” tool (www.Lexile.com/fab/Alabama ) offers students over 260,000 books from which to choose. This book-search tool enables individuals to build custom reading lists based on their Lexile range and/or personal interests and checks the availability of books at the local library. The search tool includes a growing collection of English literary and informational books.
Starting May 1, children, parents, and educators are able to pledge to read using the “Find a Book, Alabama” tool, which is encouraged.
The Alabama Summer Learning Challenge also includes a FREE email-based math skills program for children who have completed 1st through 8th grades.
Parents and other summer care-givers can begin registering for the program today.
Starting Monday, June 18, parents will begin receiving daily emails with fun activities and resources to help their children retain math skills acquired during the previous school year. After the program ends on Friday, July 27, parents can print an award certificate to celebrate their child’s summer accomplishment!
This summer, Fuel Education is providing two FREE learning activities to all students in the state from May 1 to July 30. Stride is an online, adaptive game-based learning platform for math, reading, language arts, and science that is accessible 24/7 on tablets, PCs, and Macs.
Big Universe is a digital reading platform that allows students to access 13,000+ eBooks and balanced literacy tools available 24/7 on any device.
Register and login at https://www.fueleducation.com/alsummerlearning.
Fuel Education will provide dedicated support lines for the Summer Learning Challenge. Please visit https://www.fueleducation.com/alsummerlearning to learn more.
ALSDE encourages students to take advantage of reading opportunities and technology at Alabama’s public libraries. Locations and information can be found at http://www.publiclibraries.com/alabama.htm.