It is not magic or a secret formula held by a handful of education professionals and described in jargon-laden journals. Every time a teacher begins a review session at the beginning of the school year, the summer vacation gets the blame, and it's a bum rap. There are several reasons for September Review, and none of them have anything at all to do with summer vacation and the supposed resulting learning loss. One reason may be as simple as tradition. That may sound dangerous for those who champion the effectiveness of the traditional school year to even suggest it, but there is basis for that.
Empty tradition is far different from tradition based in fact.
The good news is that our kids are doing well in the summer. A little review is a good thing for all of us anyway, including the kids. It builds a little confidence, a little momentum and sharpens up the things we already know. When our school system embarked on the study of the y-r concept, the question of review and commonly known concrete concepts of learning brought us to the discussion of curriculum. We discovered that we could eliminate a lot of unnecessary repetition by aligning curriculum between classes and grades.