Locally and nationally, English Learners (ELs) struggle to achieve parity with their monolingual peers in reading. In addition to second language-related considerations, ELs' efforts to succeed in reading may be thwarted by poverty, trauma, interrupted education, barriers to effective instruction and parental engagement, limited parental…

The fundamental goal of the Third Grade Summer Reading Camp program in 2024 was to bolster the reading skills of struggling third grade students and to prepare them to demonstrate mastery of state standards needed to be promoted to the fourth grade. The Office of Program Evaluation undertook an evaluation to gauge whether students who completed…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an 18-day summer tutoring program in which graduate student tutors delivered 15 minutes of differentiated reading instruction (DRI) and a 30-minute interactive read-aloud (IRA) lesson each day. Students in grades K-5 (N = 179) attending a summer program at one urban elementary school…

A substantial amount of evidence suggests that students, particularly those from economically disadvantaged households, experience summer reading loss. Available evidence suggests this is due to a lack of participation in literacy-focused activities and access to books during the summer break from school. The current study investigated whether…

This research summary explores READS and the rigorous research behind its development over the years, as well as the program's outcomes and key components. The brainchild of James Kim, a Harvard University education professor, READS provides 10 free, carefully-matched books to third through fifth graders over the summer, along with three key…

Students who display reading difficulties/disabilities at the end of third grade are less likely to succeed in content areas and graduate from high school than their reading-proficient peers. Literature suggests that students in rural school districts lag behind their suburban peers in terms of their reading levels and accessibility to resources.…

In a common approach for scaling up effective educational practice, schools adopt evidence-based programs to be implemented with fidelity. An alternative approach assumes that programs should be adapted to local contexts. In this randomized trial of a reading intervention, we study a scaffolded sequence of implementation in which schools first…

Among the academic challenges faced by students from low-socioeconomic status (SES) homes is the loss of academic skills during the summer months. A total of 22 elementary students from low-SES homes participated in a summer program designed to improve oral and written narrative skills. We gathered oral and written narrative samples at the…

To improve the reading comprehension outcomes of children in high-poverty schools, policymakers need to identify reading interventions that show promise of effectiveness at scale. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a low-cost and large-scale summer reading intervention that provided comprehension lessons at the end of the school year and…

The authors conducted a cluster-randomized trial to examine the effectiveness of structured teacher adaptations to the implementation of an evidence-based summer literacy program that provided students with (a) books matched to their reading level and interests and (b) teacher scaffolding for summer reading in the form of end-of-year comprehension…

We evaluated the effects of a summer reading intervention with a sample of low-income Black and Hispanic students who were struggling readers. In the summer before their 2nd- or 3rd-grade school year, 14 rising 2nd graders and 18 rising 3rd graders received 15 hr of a scripted, explicit phonics-based program in dyads from credentialed elementary…

Many children experience summer learning loss during the summer as measured by grade-level equivalents on standardized tests. Camp-based reading programs are a promising strategy to reduce summer learning loss. Situated within a positive youth development (PYD) theoretical approach, this study explored the efficacy of a U.S. camp-based reading…

The problem of summer reading loss among low-income children has been amply documented by researchers. Over time, income-based disparities in reading achievement appear to grow more rapidly during the summer months than the academic school year. This paper describes two experiments in which teachers scaffold summer book reading with two different…

The freshman academic year is one of the most difficult years that a medical student experiences in his/her academic life at a medical school. Freshmen are frequently faced with several challenges, such as adaptation to a new academic environment and its associated different methods of teaching, learning, skills, and assessment. The aim of this…

READS (Reading Enhances Achievement During Summer) has been implemented in North Carolina schools for the past several years as part of an Investing in Innovation (i3) validation grant that began in fall 2010. This paper focuses on the Year 3 study and compares the Year 3 results to the Year 1 and Year 2 results, and the results of earlier…