AI tutoring app aims to combat summer slide in math, other subjects

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Students have been out of school for more than a month, and while the break is welcome, experts warn it can come at a cost to their education.

The phenomenon is commonly known as the summer slide — the loss of academic skills and knowledge students can experience during summer break.

What the data shows

Data from the Northwest Evaluation Association shows the summer slide reduces ability across multiple subjects. Students lose an estimated 2.5 to 2.6 months of math ability over the summer. In English, the loss is about a month and a half. In STEM subjects, students lose roughly a month.

That means students returning to school in the fall are starting behind where they were when the school year ended in the spring.

Why math is especially vulnerable

Asish Bonsal, founder and CEO of StarSpark and a former executive at Google, Amazon, and Twitter, said math functions like a muscle.

“If you are trying to build muscle, you’ve got to show up to the gym,” Bonsal said. “If you stop working out, the muscles will devolve. I think math is like that.”

Bonsal said the brain is optimized to conserve energy, and if certain skills go unused, the brain stops retaining them.

What works — and what doesn’t

Bonsal said preventing the summer slide does not require a major time commitment.

“It’s just all it takes is about 15–20 minutes of math five days a week,” he said. He added that libraries often offer reading clubs and book lists that can serve a similar purpose for English skills.

He said the goal is to create a balanced routine during summer months — one that includes play but also a few minutes of academic practice each day.

AI tools and critical thinking

Bonsal cautioned parents to research AI-based learning tools carefully, drawing a distinction between tools that solve problems for students and those that foster critical thinking.

“Is it helping them think or is it doing the thinking for them?” he said.

StarSpark, he said, uses a Socratic tutoring model — asking students questions to guide them toward answers rather than providing solutions directly. He described it as a purpose-built system aligned to course standards for all U.S. states, including Georgia.

About StarSpark

Bonsal said he founded StarSpark two years ago after working with the Gemini team at Google. He said his own experience as a parent, combined with more than a decade in machine learning and AI, led him to build what he described as an affordable personal tutor.

StarSpark offers a free 15-day trial at starspark.ai. Parents can register, add children, and select grade levels. Bonsal said students can choose to review the previous grade’s material or get ahead by enrolling in the grade they will enter in the fall.

He said the platform is mastery-based, meaning students stay on a concept until they have learned it, rather than moving on according to a fixed schedule.

Bonsal said students who use StarSpark two to three hours per week have been able to complete an entire math grade level in about six months.