Curbing the summer slide: How to keep your kids' brains sharp over vacation
- CBC News

The long break from school can result in some children forgetting the academic skills learned over the school year. Studies confirm that kids can lose about 2.6 months of their math skills over the summer, and some groups of kids lose two months of reading skills. Teachers complain that when school starts up in the fall they spend way too much time trying to get kids back up to speed. Experts call it "the summer slide," and it puts children at a serious disadvantage at the beginning of a new school year.

The Sound Factory Music School offers private lessons during the summer for students wishing to start/continue with their studies through the break.  Lessons are offered on a week by week schedule on a first come first serve basis.  If you are at the cottage, at camp, or taking a trip to Europe, book around your busy schedule.  We're always flexible!

1. CONTINUITY:  Music is like a language – if don’t use it, you lose it.  Maintaining skills over the summer prevents a student from having to devote the first few weeks of the fall trying to relearn what they forgot, and that's like paying for the same lessons twice! 
   
2. LESS DEMANDS:  Without the pressure and time demands of school, homework and other activities not offered in the summer, there is more time to focus on learning and practice.
3. OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW:  Without the distractions of school and other activities, there is a chance to learn a new skill that there may not be time for during the year, like theory or sight reading.  Music lesson time can be doubled up to allow more time to focus on some of the more complex topics, or students have the chance to focus on "fun" side projects!
4. DISRUPTION IN PRACTICE:  One may think that students can just practice what they have learned all year over the summer.  But often times, without the expectation that what is being taught in a music lesson will need to be learned over the week, practice time can go by the wayside.  Students can also develop bad habits without at least some interactive correction with their teacher.  This can also lead to several weeks in the fall being devoted to undoing the bad and starting over.   This is otherwise unnecessary extra time!  Even a few lessons through the summer can save you a lot of money, and get you playing much more quickly.
   
5. MORE FLEXIBILITY :  If you are concerned that music lessons will not fit into your summer plans (vacation, summer camp, etc), we will work with you to come up with a custom schedule to fit your needs, be it doubling up on music lessons, allowing more make ups than are usually permitted in sessions during the year, or if need be, a pro-rated schedule to run during the students’ free blocks of time over the summer.