Summer Faith & Learning: Helping Your Child Grow All Season
- Jul 23
- 6 min read
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." — Proverbs 22:6
When the final school bell rings in June, most families breathe a well-earned sigh of relief. Backpacks are tucked away, alarm clocks fall silent, and the rhythm of the year shifts. But here at Divine Redeemer Catholic School, we like to gently remind our parents of something important: faith and learning don't take a summer vacation.
In fact, the long, sunny days of summer offer something the school year rarely does — time. Time to read together. Time to pray together. Time to wonder, to question, to explore. With a little intention, summer can become one of the most spiritually and academically formative seasons of your child's year.
Below, we share why that matters — and how your family can make the most of it.
Faith Doesn't Take a Break — and Neither Should Formation
At DRCS, our days are woven with prayer, Sacraments, service, and Christ-centered learning. When summer arrives, that daily rhythm changes — but the call to grow in faith does not. Children who experience faith only inside a classroom or sanctuary may begin to see it as a "school subject" rather than a way of life.
Summer is the season to change that.
It's the season to model faith at home: in the way we pray before meals, the kindness we extend to a neighbor, the gratitude we express on a long car ride, the questions we welcome at bedtime. Our core values — Living Faith, Accepting Responsibility, Academic Excellence, and Developing Future Leaders — are not seasonal. They are a way of being.
A few simple ways to keep faith alive at home this summer:
Begin each morning with a short family prayer or Scripture verse.
Attend Mass together as a family — and talk about the homily afterward.
Create a "gratitude jar" where every family member adds one blessing per day.
Choose one act of service per week — visiting a grandparent, donating clothes, helping a neighbor.
Read a children's Saint biography or illustrated Bible story before bed.
A Special Word on Reading and Academic Readiness
This is the section every parent should bookmark.
Educational research has long pointed to a phenomenon called the "summer slide" — the measurable loss of academic skills that occurs when children disengage from learning during the long break. Studies suggest that students can lose up to two months of reading and math progress over a single summer. Those losses compound year after year, and by the time a student reaches middle school, the gap between summer-active and summer-passive readers can be staggering.
The good news? It's almost entirely preventable.
Why summer reading matters so much:
Reading is the engine of every other subject. Strong readers become stronger writers, stronger problem-solvers, and more confident learners across science, social studies, and even math word problems.
Vocabulary growth is exponential during the elementary years. Each book a child reads in the summer adds hundreds of new words to their working vocabulary — words they'll need next year and beyond.
Reading builds attention and stamina. In a world of short videos and quick swipes, the ability to sit with a book for 20 or 30 minutes is a cognitive superpower.
It prepares them for the next level. A rising 3rd grader who reads steadily through summer walks into the classroom ready for the leap from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." A rising 6th grader who keeps reading is prepared for the heavier text loads, longer essays, and deeper comprehension demands of middle school.
A simple summer learning plan that works:
20 minutes of reading per day, minimum. Let your child choose books they love — graphic novels, mysteries, faith-based stories, nature books. Choice fuels motivation.
Visit the local library weekly. Most Charleston-area libraries run free summer reading programs with prizes and incentives.
Keep a "summer reading log." Children love checking off boxes and earning small rewards.
Practice math in the real world. Cooking (fractions), shopping (money and percentages), road trips (time and distance), and gardening (measurement) all reinforce skills painlessly.
Write something every week. A journal, a postcard to a grandparent, a story about a vacation — anything that keeps the writing muscle warm.
Read aloud as a family. Even older children benefit from being read to. It builds listening comprehension and shared experience.
Complete your summer assignments!- 20 minutes a day are all you need and it will be applied as the first grade for the new year.
When students return to DRCS in August, those who have stayed engaged academically don't just survive the first weeks of school — they thrive. They are ready to learn, ready to lead, and ready to grow into the next chapter of their education.
Faith and Learning Are Stronger Together
One of the most beautiful things about a Catholic education is that we never treat faith and learning as separate tracks. They are two strands of the same rope.
When children read a story about courage, we connect it to the saints who lived it. When they study creation in science, we connect it to the Creator. When they wrestle with hard math problems, we remind them that perseverance is a virtue.
This summer, look for those connections at home:
Read books that explore moral choices — and talk about them.
Pray for help before a hard task, and give thanks after.
Volunteer as a family and turn it into a conversation about service and dignity.
Watch the night sky and talk about wonder, vastness, and the God who made it all.
These small moments are the roots from which lifelong faith and learning grow. They are exactly what we strive to nurture every day in our classrooms — and what our Student Life program reinforces through service, sacraments, and community.
How DRCS Partners With Families All Year Long
Founded in 1960, Divine Redeemer Catholic School has spent more than six decades walking alongside families in Hanahan and Charleston as they raise children of strong faith and sharp minds. Our approach is rooted in partnership: parents are the first educators of their children, and our role is to support, extend, and enrich the formation that begins at home.
That partnership is exactly why summer matters. The work you do at home from June through August — the books you read, the prayers you share, the conversations you have at the dinner table — feeds directly into the child who walks back through our doors in the fall.
If you're new to DRCS, we'd love to introduce you to our community:
Curious about programs? Start with Our School and our K3 & K4 program.
Ready to take the next step? Visit Admissions.
Have questions? Our FAQ page covers many of the most common ones.
Want to talk to a real person or visit us? Contact us — we'd love to hear from you.
A Final Word for Parents
Summer can be many things — restful, busy, joyful, exhausting, all of the above. But it does not have to be a season of forgetting. With small, consistent habits — a prayer here, a book there, a conversation, a service project — you can turn these months into something sacred.
Your child does not need a lot this summer. They need you. They need your attention, your example, your faith lived out in ordinary moments.
That is how faith is passed on. That is how readers are made. That is how the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and disciples is formed.
This summer, we invite you to keep growing — in faith, in knowledge, in love.
We'll be ready to welcome your child back in August, hearts and minds open.
More About Divine Redeemer Catholic School
At Divine Redeemer Catholic School (DRCS), we provide a Christ-centered education that nurtures academic excellence, faith formation, and character development. Rooted in Catholic tradition, our school fosters a supportive community where students grow spiritually, intellectually, and socially.
Grades: Pre-K through 8th Grade
Location:1104 Fort Drive,Hanahan SC 29410
Want to learn more about our school and how we can support your child's education?
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Divine Redeemer Catholic School is a Christ-centered, culturally diverse community where we: embrace the uniqueness of every student, enrich our students through faith and knowledge, and empower our students to be advocates for themselves, their community, and the world.
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