Sonia bought a second-grade math workbook in late June. Her daughter had finished the school year with a passing grade but a shaky grasp of subtraction. The workbook sat on the kitchen table for a week before either of them touched it.
When they finally did, her daughter stared at the first page. Six problems on subtraction with regrouping. After a long pause, she said, "I don't think we learned this."
They had. Sonia remembered the worksheet from March. Her daughter had done fine on it then. Now, three months later, the skill was gone.
Every summer, a version of this scene happens in households across New York City. The question underneath it is the same one Sonia asked herself: Is this normal, and what am I supposed to do about it?
What the Data Says
NWEA releases national norms every few years based on MAP Growth assessments from millions of students. The 2025 norms, published this spring, show that math scores drop between two to seven RIT points during the summer, with the biggest drops in elementary grades. That's roughly 10% to 30% of what a student learns during a typical school year.
Reading scores, on average, barely move between spring and fall—differences of less than one RIT point. That doesn't mean summer doesn't matter for reading. It means reading skills don't erode the way math skills do. The problem isn't regression. It's that progress stops. Kids who were gaining during the school year stop gaining. Kids who were already behind stay where they are.
A separate analysis of 800,000 students pegged summer learning loss at one to two months of academic content. RAND has documented that these losses accumulate year after year.
But the averages hide as much as they reveal. The students losing the most ground—the top 10% of summer slide—are falling behind by the equivalent of more than a year's worth of typical school-year progress. They are disproportionately concentrated in low-income households.
Why Different Kids Lose Different Things
In a middle-class neighborhood in July, kids are at camp pickup lines. Families are in library reading rooms. Children are waiting in museum lobbies for a workshop to start. Nobody is doing worksheets. But someone is asking them questions. They're hearing new words. They're following multi-step instructions. They're negotiating with other kids. The cognitive demands don't stop just because school did.
In a low-income neighborhood the same week, the built environment is different. There are fewer camps. The library may be on reduced summer hours or harder to reach. Museums charge admission. The adults in the house may be working hourly jobs that don't allow for midday library runs. The child is safe, fed, indoors. The brain is not being asked as much.
Low-income students lose about 25% more ground over the summer than their higher-income peers. By fifth grade, more than half the achievement gap between low-income and higher-income children traces back to what did or didn't happen during summers.
The summer break was built for a society where kids worked in fields. It now functions as ten weeks during which the cognitive stimulation a child receives depends almost entirely on what their household can afford.
What Works (and What Doesn't)
In December 2025, NWEA published a study of summer school programs in ten large districts during 2022 and 2023. The finding that matters most: summer school consistently improved math scores. It did not improve reading.
The math gains were small—two to three weeks of extra learning—but they showed up across districts and program designs. The reading results were flat even in well-designed programs. NWEA's own conclusion was that districts "should not abandon summer literacy instruction" but needed to figure out more effective approaches.
For a parent trying to decide where to put limited time and money, the implication is straightforward. A structured summer program has a real chance of helping with math. For reading, the same program will occupy your child but probably won't close the gap. Reading growth over the summer depends heavily on what happens at home—whether anyone reads with the child, whether there are books in the house, whether the adults model reading as something people just do.
A Library Card Gets You Into 100 Museums
The New York Public Library runs a summer program that starts June 9 and continues through August. It includes a benefit most cardholders don't realize they have: Culture Pass. You log in with your library card number and reserve free passes to over 100 museums, gardens, and cultural sites across the city. Many passes cover up to four people.
The Met. The Bronx Zoo. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The Museum of the Moving Image. Free, with a card most New Yorkers already have sitting in their wallet.
The library also runs free programming all summer—storytimes, arts and crafts, STEAM activities, tech workshops for teens—at branches across the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. This isn't a reading challenge that demands your child finish 20 books. It's a place to go where something is happening.
The summer meals program adds another layer. Free breakfast and lunch, no registration, no ID. Meal pickup sites are often located in or near libraries, parks, and community centers—the same places where free programming is already running. A child who goes to a meal site can stay for whatever else is going on there.
Less Time to Begin With
NYC public school students spend about 1,102 hours in class per year—roughly 130 fewer hours than the national average of 1,231. That's about 20 fewer school days each year before any child misses a single day for illness or travel.
The main driver is the length of the school day: 6 hours and 20 minutes in New York City, compared to about 7 hours nationally.
Add chronic absenteeism and the gap widens further. About one in three NYC students missed at least 10% of school days last year. That's another 18 days of lost instruction on top of the 20 built into the calendar. Summer lands on top of a system already delivering less. When people talk about "summer learning loss" in New York City, the baseline isn't the same as it is elsewhere. The loss starts from a tank that was never full.
What You Can Do
The lowest-cost, highest-return thing over the summer is reading. Not workbooks. Not educational apps. Reading. The data on reading is clear: skills don't erode the way math skills do, so the goal is momentum rather than recovery. A child who reads every day—anything, in any language—keeps their vocabulary and comprehension active. The library is free. The books are free. The library is air-conditioned. That combination is hard to beat.
If you can add conversation, add it. Open-ended questions about whatever your child is reading, watching, or doing: What did you notice? What surprised you? Questions like these demand that a child organize their thoughts into language. That's the same cognitive skill that underlies writing. Anyone can ask them.
If you have more resources, add experiences. Camp, museum visits, a trip to the park with another family. The mechanism that protects against summer learning loss is cognitive stimulation. Environments that provide it help. Environments that don't, don't.
For summer school: the NWEA study gives a clear answer. It helps with math. The evidence on reading is less encouraging. Use it for math recovery. For reading, supplement at home regardless.
The late-start gap is real. NYC's 2026-27 school year begins September 10, and most camps end in mid-August. That leaves two to four weeks when a child's routine falls away and the new school year hasn't started. If you can, plan something for those weeks now—a library program, a community center activity, a recurring playdate. If you can't, the reading-and-conversation framework costs nothing and works anywhere.
Sonia's daughter spent the rest of July reading about ocean animals and drawing comics. At some point Sonia stopped worrying about the workbook and started taking her to the library on Tuesday afternoons. They got cards. Her daughter pulled out books about jellyfish. She used the word "tentacles" correctly in conversation. She had learned it from a comic she drew.
She asked Sonia whether jellyfish sleep.
They do, sort of.