The present study examined potential synergistic relationships between reading engagement and reading comprehension among 3,689 third and fourth graders across 59 schools in North Carolina. Using hierarchical regression analyses, we replicated previous findings that reading engagement explains unique variance in reading comprehension. Our results…

This study reports on the instruction provided in district-designed intensive summer reading programs. The Tier 3 intervention was provided to 374 students from 24 school districts who were not meeting the end of third-grade reading benchmarks; students were exiting third grade and entering fourth grade. Observations of the 40 classes were…

This qualitative study investigated the ways in which 84 parents from predominantly low-income communities described supporting their third graders' reading skills, motivation, and habits. Thematic analysis of open-ended parent interviews indicated that parents actively and deliberately scaffolded their children's progress toward developing…

This article presents an evaluation of the first 2 years of a research-based summer learning program that provided self-selected and developmentally appropriate books to students in low-income and low-resource elementary schools by a local philanthropic organization in a large urban district. The evaluation found evidence of a positive effect of…

One factor, summer reading loss, exacerbated by students living in rural, poverty areas gave rise to this study. The overall research problem was summer reading loss. The study looked at whether students attending fifth through eighth grades in a rural, poverty district and who participated in an at-home summer reading intervention where texts…

The "summer learning effect" (SLE) is described as a stall or drop in achievement over summer, especially in schools serving poor or "minority" communities. There has been little research in Europe on the effect, and research internationally has primarily focused on the effect in reading, with minimal focus on writing. This…

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…

The purpose of this phenomenological bound case study was to explore the effect of acquiring sight words on reading fluency and comprehension skills for early literacy learners during a summer reading camp at one elementary campus in south Texas. Study findings indicated that through prescribed learning experiences with sight words that included…

Summer drift, otherwise known as loss of reading comprehension skills or reading achievement, has been a well-known and well-documented phenomenon of public education for decades. Studies from the late twentieth century to the present have demonstrated a slowdown in summer drift attributed to specific summer reading programs addressing motivation…

This study employs a sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) design to develop an adaptive intervention with personalized print and digital content for kindergarten to Grade 2 children (n = 273). In Stage 1, we ask whether it is better for children to receive an adaptive intervention based on (a) 10 conceptually coherent texts or…

This mixed method study, grounded in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, examines if nonfiction e-books read independently by children enrolled in a summer reading program will increase vocabulary, improve comprehension, and enhance motivation to read as compared to children reading nonfiction trade books with adult support. Findings indicate…

The Read to be Ready campaign emerged from the startling reality of Tennessee's reading achievement data. Only one-third of Tennessee fourth graders scored proficient in the last administration of National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in 2015. Equally concerning, students who fell behind in the early years almost never caught up in…

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…