Summer lessons are not only for students who failed. They serve several purposes, and knowing which one applies to your child changes what you should ask for.
Who summer lessons are for
They are offered to students who failed a core subject in their final exams, and to those who have to resit a Ministry of Education exam.
But you do not need poor results to benefit from them. They also suit students who want to consolidate what they have learned in a particular subject, and to review the material covered during the year.
Does my child need summer lessons?
If your child is in Secondary 4 or 5 and scored below 60% on a Ministry of Education exam, summer lessons are strongly recommended before the resit. According to Michel Paré, then director of the Chemin-du-Roy school board in Trois-Rivières, roughly two thirds of students enrolled in catch-up courses pass the resit. Conversely, roughly two thirds of those who do not enrol fail a second time.
If your child failed a core subject at the end of a secondary year, summer lessons are equally advisable. Secondary school is divided into two cycles, and repeating a year is usually only offered at the end of a cycle. A student already behind in Secondary 1 will struggle throughout Secondary 2, so reviewing before moving up is the better path.
The same holds at primary level. Summer lessons let a child revisit their weak points and consolidate what they know, rather than accumulate gaps.
Does my child forget over the holidays?
Yes. An analysis of 39 research reports on the effects of summer holidays on school achievement (Cooper, 1996) showed that achievement test scores drop over the summer. In the best documented cases there was simply no improvement. In the worst, students lost the equivalent of a month of learning.
Égide Royer, psychologist and professor of special education at Université Laval, calls this loss the summer slide (Royer, 2003).
According to Cooper, the learning most disrupted by the slide is mathematics and reading, and the specific skills most affected are mathematical computation and spelling.
Loss of reading fluency is easier to prevent, since children can read over the summer. Encourage your child to read during the holidays.
The negative effect of the summer break is stronger among students with particular educational needs (Cooper, 1996). In particular, if the language spoken at home is neither French nor English, your child may lose language skills gained at school.
What summer lessons actually do
They keep the learning cycle going instead of interrupting it. They let a student revisit precisely what did not hold, at a pace no school year allows, and they rebuild confidence before September rather than after the first report card.
Summer lessons at Services Tutorat
Our summer lessons are one to one, online anywhere in Quebec or in your home. The tutor is the one who knows the subject best at your child’s level, and you receive a written report after every session.
Revision lessons run in the summer only. The rate is $40 an hour online and $45 in your home, and the first 30-minute assessment session is free.
