Huntington Learning Center hosting free webinar Thursday at 1:30 p.m. for parents and students to stem the “COVID Slide”

Osceola County educators talk about avoiding the “Summer Slide” each year, when they encourage students to read and enrich themselves during the summer in order to keep learning gains from the prior school year.

This year, with coronavirus forcing students away from school and teachers to do their learning remotely for roughly two months of school, there’s a new term for 2020: “the COVID slide”, as students could potentially go five months — or more — without classroom structure.

There’s a tutoring outlet in St. Cloud that wants to help area students cut down on the slide.

On Thursday starting at 1:30 p.m., join Huntington Learning Center in St. Cloud for a free webinar that covers the fight against the COVID Slide and how parents and students can benefit from learning the information so they don’t fall more behind. To sign up, go to the registration page, or to Huntington’s local Facebook page  and scroll down just a bit for the link.

“The summer slide is inevitable. Kids are so glad to be done in May they’re ready to put everything down and pick back up in August, said Alexandria Rosolowski, Huntington Learning Center’s programming administrator. “This year because of the the pandemic we’re expecting to see a higher slide, with a 30 percent loss in reading and as much as 60 percent in math. We’ve found the choice was to review information they’ve already covered instead of introducing so many new topics through the end of the year.

“So students who are going into sixth grade next year are probably only going to have an understanding of half of fifth grade. They’re going to have to catch up in a short period of time, meaning some things needed at the next grad level won’t be grasped. For students to be ready for the next grade in the fall, they may even have to play a little catch-up this summer.”

Huntington Learning Center is tutoring center for grades K-12 and preparation for the SAT, ACT and other standardized tests. Its tutors work with students to first gain a better understanding their academic goals, and then develop a plan to strengthen and eliminate their weaknesses to move them on to graduation and beyond, removing any possibility that they fall through the cracks.

The in-person location at 4554 13th Street in St. Cloud (between the Home Depot and Wal-Mart) will re-open on Monday following CDC guidelines. For information go to www.HuntingtonHelps.com or call 407-789-3688.