Written: July 2022 Updated: March 2026
Summer should feel like a break. But if you’ve ever walked into your building in August and realized how much ground your students lost, you already understand why students need supplemental tutoring in the summer.
The reality is simple: while it is a great time for students to kick back and enjoy the time off, too much free time in the summer can be a bad thing if it leads to regressive habits, learning loss, gaps in academic skills, and a frustrating reset at the start of the school year.
That’s where synchronous virtual summer tutoring changes the trajectory. With the right tutors, structure, and tutoring sessions, districts can protect the gains made during the previous school year and help students step into the upcoming school year on the right foot. The slide is real, but so is the solution.
What is the Summer Slide?
The summer slide is the tendency of students to lose some achievement gains they’ve made during the previous school year. According to James Kim, Ed.D., assistant professor of education at Harvard University, the youngest children are the most prone to learning loss because they’re at a crucial developmental stage.
Right now, educators and policymakers are seeing a massive slide across the board. According to a Reuters article, a White House official said, “Students on average are two to four months behind in reading and math as a result of the pandemic.”
The learning loss is so significant that the “U.S. is recruiting more than 250,000 mentors and tutors to help students who have fallen behind in their learning during the coronavirus pandemic and will be allocating approximately $122 billion in funds provided by the American Rescue Plan COVID-relief package to provide high-quality tutoring, summer learning and enrichment, and afterschool programs.”
At a time when students of varied backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, and learning levels are experiencing gaps, many educators worry they will undoubtedly be starting the academic year with students whose achievement levels are lower than where they were at the beginning of summer break.
The summer slide is at an all-time high, and districts, teachers, and parents feel the sting of disparity in student academic performance.
So, what do we do?
The answer is surprisingly simple: online summer tutoring.
Summer Tutoring Online: The Solution to the Summer Slide
At its core, summer tutoring is structured academic instruction delivered during the summer months to help students maintain or strengthen their skills before the new school year begins. In a synchronous model, students are physically present in a school setting with a facilitator, while certified tutors provide live, interactive instruction via livestream. This is not pre-recorded video lectures. It’s real-time engagement, conversation, and targeted support.
Instruction is coordinated through a Learning Management System (LMS)—a platform like Canvas or Schoology where attendance is tracked, assignments are managed, and grades are reported. The LMS works alongside livestream technology and interactive digital tools to create a cohesive learning experience. In virtual tutoring, students receive individualized attention, meaningful interaction, and consistent feedback that supports measurable progress.
Why Students Need Summer Tutoring: The Benefits
Summer tutoring can help students avoid learning loss, consolidate learning, and fill any gaps in education. It can also help them learn important life skills, keep children in the learning mindset, provide enrichment opportunities, and stave off boredom. Let’s look closer at these benefits.
Avoid Learning Loss and Consolidate Learning
Summer tutoring can help students avoid learning loss, consolidate learning, and fill knowledge gaps in core subjects like math and reading. In the fall, teachers often spend weeks reteaching material that should have been retained from the prior school year.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. With consistent tutoring sessions during the summer months, students can reinforce foundational knowledge and strengthen academic skills before the new school year begins.
When students maintain a solid foundation, they can focus on new material instead of reviewing old concepts. This leads to stronger academic achievement, improved academic performance, and sustained student growth over time. Also, these programs have been shown to help students and teachers scaffold their learning in meaningful ways and bring them to a deeper level of understanding and knowledge.
Learn Important Life Skills
The summer is the perfect opportunity for children to develop essential skills beyond content mastery. During summer tutoring, students can practice important life skills like:
- Critical thinking skills
- Intrinsic motivation
- Organization
- Time management
- Communication skills
- Future goal setting
- Practical training like computer skills
Tutors can help students further develop these skills and put them into practice. This, in turn, helps them have more control over their studies and schedules and become self-guided lifelong learners.
With guidance from certified tutors, students practice learning skills that support long-term academic success and even future academic careers. Structured yet flexible sessions create space for students to explore, reflect, and build confidence in their ability to grasp concepts independently.
These skills don’t disappear when the school year starts. They carry forward into the fall and help students stay prepared and motivated.
Keep Children in the Learning Mindset
During the summer months, routines in general can fall to the wayside, especially if students don’t adhere to some sort of schedule or structure. Bad habits can start to form and can make it much more difficult when they come back after the summer break.
Regular summer tutoring can help students maintain a learning routine. Through regular tutoring sessions, students maintain structure in a relaxed environment that balances accountability and flexibility. This consistency protects learning momentum and keeps students mentally prepared for the upcoming school year.
Provide Enrichment Opportunities and Stave Off Boredom
Summer is also the perfect time for enrichment classes that pique students’ personal interests in order to continue to cultivate a love of learning and to stave off the summertime boredom blues. When students are learning something new and something that actually piques their interest, they become enthralled with their learning. Most won’t even realize how hard they are working when it comes to learning anything and everything about something that excites them.
High-quality summer tutoring programs create enrichment opportunities that spark motivation, encourage exploration, and make learning feel meaningful, not repetitive. In a supportive classroom setting, students can dive deeper into specific areas of interest, build confidence, and experience the joy of discovery.
This type of enrichment supports both academic progress and overall success, helping children stay engaged rather than disengaged during the summer months.
I once had a mentor say that the greatest thing I could do as an educator was instill a love of learning and inquiry in all my students. She said that eventually I wouldn’t be their teacher anymore and they’d have to go out into the world and teach themselves. But if I’d done my job right and helped them create those a-ha and exciting moments, they’d remember the joy of learning and persist despite the difficulties.
Summer tutoring helps with doing that. And really, the benefits of summer tutoring can go on and on. Sometimes the most difficult part is finding qualified tutors and reliable tutoring resources that align with district needs.
But that’s where the right partner matters, and Proximity Learning has you covered.
With Proximity, Districts get On-Demand Tutoring
With Proximity Learning On-Demand Tutoring, districts can customize and tailor tutoring programs to the students’ learning needs. The great thing is that it’s not only available in the summer but can also be implemented year-round.
This solution means districts can choose an allotted number of tutoring hours for each student. Other key offerings include:
- Tutors available on-demand over chat and livestream video
- Progress tracking with progression dashboards
- Online whiteboarding, file sharing, and feedback systems
This is not just a click-and-watch video tutoring service. This is engaging and dynamic programming to help not only catch students up in the summer, but also help them stay on level all school year.
Also, Proximity’s tutoring programs grant access to an Educational Support System with a rich library of over 10,000 hours of video, lessons, and materials covering all levels of education. This Educational Support System includes pre- and post-assessments to monitor student growth.
Turning Summer Into a Launchpad for Success
All students everywhere deserve access to the best educational programming – period. And together, we can help bring equity to millions of students nationwide who might be struggling with the summer slide or other educational achievement gaps. On the flipside, all students deserve dynamic educational services and tutors that get them excited about learning, no matter where they are in their academic careers.
For more than 15 years, Proximity Learning has supported over 400 partner districts and staffed more than 3,000 classrooms with certified educators who show up live, every day, for every student. Our tutoring programs are built around live interaction, measurable progress, and a scalable model designed to meet your district’s individual needs.
When you’re ready to give your students a real head start on the upcoming school year, we’d love to help you make that happen. Reach out today and let’s talk about what that looks like for your district.
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