Effective transitions to kindergarten engage families and ease children into new environments. Countdown to Kindergarten (CTK), a program in a southeastern U.S. state that serves more than 1,000 children each year and is grounded in Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, partners kindergarten teachers and families to facilitate effective…

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a non-randomized summer reading program offered by a school district meeting or exceeding all National Summer Learning Project recommendations. The district had 10 years of experience delivering the program to Grades 1-5 students with or at risk of reading disabilities. Voluntary participation had…

Background/purpose: This article presents the results of a pedagogical experiment involving 602 elementary school children from the north of Portugal. Based on the principles of outdoor learning, this experience was carried out in a non-formal education context during the post-pandemic school year - Férias VIVES. The aim of this initiative was to…

Kindergarten transition programs support successful school transitions for families and may reduce disparities in academic readiness upon school entry. Yet, access and participation in high-quality summer transition programs are lower among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This study examined the impact of a summer kindergarten transition…

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 quantitative comparative study was to determine the differences in literacy and mathematics pass rates between AY 2021-2022 and AY 2022-2023, whether a 21st CCLC Program contributed to score differences and whether there is an interaction between them in a southeastern state. A two-way mixed ANOVA was used to answer the…

Based on the intersection of different systems at school entry, children and families often experience uncertainty about their preparedness and impending shift from other early childhood settings. This study used a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design and investigated the perspectives of parents and caregivers on kindergarten readiness with…

The study was carried out to determine whether Turkish primary school 1st graders experienced reading loss during the summer holidays and whether giving book support to disadvantaged students during the summer holidays was effective in preventing this loss. The research was conducted with 26 students at a rural primary school. The pretest-posttest…

The unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges including a need for new curricula, pedagogy, and more accessible forms of professional development (PD). A gap in research exists regarding professional development of educators. This qualitative study used data collected from two surveys, a focus group, and a…

Despite extensive research suggesting the importance of students developing strong foundational math skills during early grades, more than 60% of 4th graders in the United States lack proficiency in mathematics. Such data are influenced by several factors, including summer learning loss in math, negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, and a…

Can summer programs, as remedial supplements to regular schooling, extend learning opportunities and other benefits to disadvantaged students? To frame this question, we compare logics from "social reproduction" and "partial compensation" perspectives, and then apply them to a large mixed method study of four kinds of summer…

Archival data were analyzed with piecewise growth models to determine the seasonal growth of students not reading proficiently who did (treatment students = 144) and did not (control students = 1113) participate in their school district's summer reading program. The rising first- through fifth graders (48% female) were predominately White (74%)…

California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) launched the five-year "Puedes! Caminos, Cariño, y Carreras in a Post-Pandemic Era" grant in Fall 2022 to enhance educational opportunity and attainment for Hispanic students in California's southern Central Valley. Building on the successes of Year 1, the project achieved notable…

Bringing Research into the Classroom (BRIC) engaged rural K-12 science teachers in sustained, mentored science research. BRIC's goal was to equip teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to provide high-quality biomedical research opportunities for K-12 students and teachers. Programmatic elements included authentic, place-based,…

Transition to kindergarten is an important developmental milestone for children and families. This study explored factors associated with kindergarten readiness focusing on the impact of a summer kindergarten transition program. A mixed-method design was employed, and the qualitative data from interviews with 16 randomly selected kindergarten…