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…

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…

There are concerns that too many young people, from disadvantaged backgrounds, are moving into secondary education in the UK, and elsewhere, without the necessary literacy skills to make progress with the wider secondary school curriculum. A large number of interventions have been proposed to reduce this poverty gradient. This paper summarises the…

Efficacy of an intensive reading intervention implemented during the nonacademic summer was evaluated in children with reading disabilities or difficulties (RD). Students (ages 6-9) were randomly assigned to receive Lindamood-Bell's "Seeing Stars" program (n = 23) as an intervention or to a waiting-list control group (n = 24). Analysis…

A randomized trial involving 19 elementary schools (K-5) was conducted to replicate and extend two previous experimental studies of the effects of a voluntary summer reading program that provided (a) books matched to students' reading levels and interests and (b) teacher scaffolding in the form of end-of-year comprehension lessons. Matched…

This study utilized mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design to investigate the impact of parent development and home-based summer reading on summer reading regression (as measured by oral reading fluency) at three Title I elementary schools in North Carolina. Title I parents and students participated in a parent development and communicated…

This guide for district and school leaders shows how to recognize opportunities to embed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) into planned policies or programs. Opportunistic RCTs can generate strong evidence for informing education decisions--with minimal added cost and disruption. The guide also outlines the key steps to conduct RCTs and responds…

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…

Beginning in elementary school, those students who struggle to acquire basic reading skills tend to demonstrate a stronger tendency towards task avoidance. As a result of their avoidant behaviors, students' reading ability progresses at a slower rate, which leads to further task evasion. The current study addressed task avoidance among…

Summer setback, which is defined as a decline in academic achievement over the summer months, occurs in many academic areas but seems especially problematic in reading. We assessed students from a midwestern parochial school serving predominantly students from a low--socioeconomic status background for their reading achievement before they left…

This report presents estimates from a large-scale, multi-district RCT (randomized controlled trial) on the effectiveness of a summer reading program on improving student reading comprehension for economically disadvantaged grade 3 students reading below the 50th percentile nationally. This study focused on the summer between grades 3 and 4 for…

The "TextNow" Transition Programme, developed by national charity Unitas, is a reading for pleasure literacy programme with one to one sessions with a volunteer coach occurring 20 minutes a day each weekday. This occurs at two time points: in Year Six, the final year of primary school for five weeks in the second half of the summer term;…

In this research, parents and children participated in a comprehensive book reading intervention designed to improve children's literacy. Over eight weeks during the summer, children in the intervention condition were encouraged to read one book weekly and parents were trained to foster reading comprehension. Forty-eight Grades 3 and 5 children…

The effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention with and without a parent training component were evaluated with a sample of low-income Latino children from language minority families. During the last month of 4th grade, 370 children were pretested on a measure of reading comprehension and vocabulary and were randomly assigned to (a) a…

Summer reading setback is a phenomenon that occurs over the summer break when students lose the skills they gained over the school year. While school-year gains are similar for disadvantaged and more-advantaged students, the achievement gap widens over the summer months. Lack of print access and less time spent reading result in greater summer…