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Transitions

For children with learning disabilities or ADHD, one of the most turbulent times of year is the transition from the defined structure of the school day into carefree summer months. Kids eagerly look forward to leaving behind their class schedules, homework and following social rules, but a whole day with nothing much to do can be just as challenging and quickly slide into boredom, anxiety or hours of screen time. The good news is that there are many things parents and caregivers can do to support their children through the school to summer transition.

Maintaining Routines and Structures 

It is important to balance providing kids with summer freedom, supporting their need for stability and managing the overall demands of your family. Although having structure is important for consistency and predictability, there will be times when you can’t maintain always maintain it and that is fine. For example, it might make sense to let your kids stay up late to watch fireworks for a Canada Day celebration. Consequently, consider these as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. 

• regular bed and wake-up times (to keep their circadian rhythms aligned)
• regular meal times (to power their activities and ability to regulate)
• daily/weekly schedule of activities (planned with kids’ input, if possible)
• limits on screen time (changed only slightly from your limits during the school year)
• age appropriate chores(a good time to introduce a new one or two)
• quiet times (reading, drawing, looking at the clouds, etc.)
• field trips and outings (library, zoo, splash parks, etc.)

At the same time, summer is a perfect opportunity to allow kids the chance to take on responsible decision making and to work through some of their own problems, giving them a sense of mastery and the chance to develop resilience through healthy risk taking. Kids need chances to build their independence by doing things that are new and challenging for them. Some ideas of freedoms that can be helpful include:

• age appropriate cooking
• freedom to roam in the neighbourhood
• learning to resolve conflicts without adult interference
• Let Grow (letgrow.org) has more ideas and resources to support you in giving kids independence. 

But, transitioning into full summer mode away from the rigours of the school year, should still include keeping that learning brain academically active.

How do I prevent Learning Loss? 

As the school year winds down, parents of children with learning disabilities (LDs) often feel a familiar wave of anxiety. While other families are dreaming of lazy beach days, parents of kids with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, or ADHD are often haunted by two words: the summer slide.

We know that for neurodivergent children, academic progress can feel fragile. It’s incredibly tempting to buy a stack of curriculum workbooks and schedule strict kitchen-table study sessions to prevent learning loss. But let’s be honest: after ten months of academic frustration, the last thing a struggling learner needs is more of the same. Worksheets often lead to power struggles, tears, and a deeper resentment toward learning.

Yet learning loss is real. When there is a prolonged period of time where knowledge and skills are not being retrieved, practiced or contemplated, they can get harder to recall. While kids absolutely need to enjoy their summer and recharge, it is still important to engage in meaningful practice so that they are ready to face the next school year with less need for review and a better foundation for continued progress.

How do we flex our memory ‘muscles’ to keep us sharp? 

Active recall strategies significantly increase our ability to remember and use our skills. During summer, it may be helpful to focus on math and regular reading activities, as well as subjects that are more challenging or have heavier content. A child moving from grade 3 to grade 4 might practice math facts and strategies throughout the summer but with simple games. That keeps it fun, family friendly, and still reinforces important skills. So, instead of saying, “It’s time to practice some math facts now,” try, “Hey, who’s going to win Bingo today?”.

These Math games focusing on multiplication, division and problem solving are simple and easy to set up.

• Multiplication war 
• Roll & solve with dice 
• Math fact bingo
• Mixed problem sets where multiple skills are practiced instead of focusing on a single skill (interleaving).
• Spacing out recall activities. For example, play a multiplication game on Monday, again on Wednesday and then on Saturday but not every day. Best yet, mix it up with cooking, shopping, and LEGO challenges (more on those below).

Aside from deliberate curriculum practice, like math facts, children can find learning in a lot of other activities to build observation, experimentation and critical thinking skills all the while flexing their creativity and curiosity. Going camping? Kids can explore ecosystems and see connections between what they learn in school to real life. During a trip to the swimming pool, kids can question how buoyancy works and why they might float better if they spread their arms wide. Video games offer opportunities to read text, calculate points or notice patterns and designs. There are so many ways to invite learning into leisure.

Beyond the Worksheets: Low-Stress Summer Literacy for Neurodivergent Kids

Here is more good news: summer is actually the perfect time to build literacy, and not have it look like school. In fact, “stealth learning”—low-stress, high-interest, and multisensory activities—is often far more effective at re-engaging a neurodivergent brain.

By shifting our definition of what “counts” as reading, we can prevent learning loss while protecting our children’s mental health and self-esteem. Here are some highly engaging ways to weave literacy into your summer routines.

As you try the following ideas, remember that 15 minutes of low-stress, enjoyable literacy a day is infinitely better than a gruelling two-hour weekend battle over a workbook.  Keep it light, celebrate all forms of reading and math, and focus on rebuilding your child’s confidence before September arrives.

“Stealth” Activities for the Whole Family

The Power of the Family Read-Aloud (All Ages)

Many parents stop reading to their children once they learn to decode words independently, but continuing to read aloud is a secret weapon for summer literacy.

• Why it works: When you read aloud, you bridge the gap between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. You expose them to advanced vocabulary, complex plot lines, and deep concepts they couldn’t otherwise decode on their own.
• The Science: Research shows that reading aloud to older kids builds background knowledge and vocabulary—the two essential ingredients for high-level reading comprehension. It keeps their cognitive wheels turning without the exhausting barrier of decoding more complex text on their own. It also may be a great way to connect differently with your pre-teen or teen.

The “Audiobook + Graphic Novel” Combo

If your child struggles with print, normalize audiobooks. Listening to a story is not “cheating.”

• The Activity: Have your child listen to an audiobook while simultaneously flipping through a physical copy of a graphic novel, heavily illustrated book, or the text version of the audio.
• Alternatively, listen to audiobooks in the car on road trips so the whole family can be part of the story, and so parents can talk to their kids about the books (vocab, plot, etc)
• The Science: The neural networks processing written language and oral language deeply intertwine and largely overlap. The brain processes meaning, structure, and vocabulary the exact same way whether reading print or listening. For kids with dyslexia, pairing audio with visuals removes the working-memory overwhelm of decoding, allowing them to actually enjoy the story.

Screen-Time Upgrades: Closed Captions & Video Game Lore

If you can’t beat the screens this summer, leverage them.

• The Activity: Turn on closed captioning for every movie, TV show, and YouTube video your child watches. For older kids who love gaming (like Minecraft, Roblox), encourage them to read character dialogue, look up game strategies on wiki pages, or write down a short “guide” to help a sibling pass a tough level.
• The Science: Kids who find reading hard read less, contributing to their vocabulary stalling. However, research says that exposure to any print—including video game text and subtitles—helps with this decline. Captions create an involuntary connection between the spoken word and text, subtly boosting word recognition.

Functional Literacy for Tweens & Teens

Older kids need activities that respect their maturity level and feel purposeful.

• The Activity: Put your teenager in charge of planning your Alberta summer road trip or family day out. Give them a budget and have them research travel blogs, look up menus, read reviews of attractions in Drumheller, Banff, Waterton, Jasper, Edmonton, or camp sites and pitch a fully structured itinerary to the family. Be sure to keep it at their level and help out when they need it so the plan is realistic, gets done and you’re off on a road trip!
• The Science: This builds functional text navigation and reading comprehension while heavily engaging the executive functioning skills that students with ADHD or LDs often need practice with—all wrapped up in a real-world task.

Multi-Sensory “Kitchen Chemistry”

Literacy isn’t just about books; it’s about following text to interact with the world.

• The Activity: Bake or cook together. Have your child be the “Head Chef” who reads the recipe, checks off the ingredients, and reads the step-by-step instructions aloud.
• The Science: This leverages the core principles of intervention—engaging sensory pathways simultaneously. Cooking forces the brain to connect written instructions with physical, hands-on actions, creating stronger memory pathways.

The Grocery Store “Estimation Game”

Dyscalculia makes it incredibly difficult to estimate quantities or understand the relative value of numbers (e.g., understanding that $20 is significantly more than $2).

• The Activity: Next time you go grocery shopping, give your child a small, physical calculator or a notepad. Pick up an item and say, “This cereal is $5.99. Is that closer to $5 or $6?” Have them round the numbers and add them up as you shop. Before you hit the checkout, ask them to guess the total.
• Why it works: This builds mental number-line estimation and financial literacy. Using a physical calculator removes the stress of doing mental arithmetic, allowing their brain to focus purely on the concept of rounding and estimation.

Subitizing with Board Games

Subitizing is the ability to look at a small group of objects (like dots on a die) and instantly know how many there are without counting them one by one. Dyscalculic students often lack this foundational skill.

• The Activity: Play games that rely on standard dice or dominoes (like Yahtzee, Monopoly, or Train Dominoes). Introduce a rule change: they aren’t allowed to count the dots with their finger. They have to look at the pattern and call out the number.
• Why it works: Pattern recognition is a bedrock of number sense. Recognizing that a “5” on a die is four corners and a dot helps train the brain to see numbers as organized structures rather than random, overwhelming quantities.

“Fractions” in the Kitchen

Fractions are notoriously difficult for dyscalculic learners because the rules seem counterintuitive (why is 1/ 4 smaller than 1/ 2 when 4 is bigger than 2?).

• The Activity: Order a pizza, bake a cake, or make a batch of brownies. Let your child do the cutting. Ask them to cut it into halves, then quarters, then eighths. Physically pull a piece away and ask them to look at the size difference between those fractions of the brownies and the other fraction of the remaining brownies.
• Why it works: It provides a visual-spatial anchor for abstract concepts. When they can physically see and hold a “quarter” of a brownie, the fraction takes on a concrete meaning that a textbook cannot replicate.

The “Concrete-Representational-Abstract” LEGO Challenge

Start with the Concrete (holding an object) before moving to the Abstract (writing a number).

• The Activity: Grab a bin of LEGO bricks. Give your child a visual challenge: “Can you build a tower that is 12 studs high using only blocks of 2 and 4?” Or, use LEGO pieces to physically represent multiplication tables (e.g., three 2×4 LEGO bricks side-by-side perfectly demonstrate 3 times 8).
• Why it works: LEGO bricks are perfect mathematical manipulatives because they have discrete, touchable units (the studs). It allows students to physically “feel” multiplication, division, and area.

Summer Programs for Neurodivergent Kids

You have a daily schedule and stealth learning activities but you also have to juggle work meaning you won’t be the only one keeping your child busy. Supervised group activities, full day care or summer camps, for at least part of the season, are likely a must. Unfortunately, they can be fraught with a sense of anxiety for both parents and kids given the social challenges often faced at school. How do you choose a program that will support your child to grow and develop, and still have a lot of fun?

One of the best places to start is by looking for environments that feel safe, inclusive, and accepting. Finding a program that is a good fit means considering not only the activity itself, but also whether your child feels supported, understood, and able to participate in a way that builds confidence and enjoyment.

Low-stake question parents can ask of a program coordinator:

• How do staff typically support children who may need a bit of extra time or reminders? (supporting all children’s executive functioning)
• What strategies do you use to help kids settle in if they feel overwhelmed or unsure? 
• How are transitions between activities supported?  Are body breaks, quiet space and free play incorporated?
• How do you work with families to help children be successful? 
• Are staff familiar with supporting neurodivergent learners or children with different learning needs? 
• Do you have any subsidy options or supported spaces for families? 

Priming your child for the start of the activity:

Before your child heads into their summer activities and/or camps, it’s important to warm up their executive function skills and remind them how they can self-advocate for their needs. 

Executive Function (EF) Support Before Camp Starts

Activities around Alberta