There is a lack of consensus among school districts on how best to mitigate reading and math learning loss during the summer months. The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative exploration study was to determine if there was a statistically and practically significant effect of an educational program on summer learning loss in reading and…

New research, using data from 7 million students in grades 3-8 in 25,000 schools who took MAP Growth reading and mathematics assessments between 2020-21 and fall 2022, continues NWEA's ongoing research agenda examining how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected student achievement in reading and math. At the start of the 2022-23 school year, we…

The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and to describe more fully the sample and methods used in the research included in the brief, "Progress toward Pandemic Recovery: Continued Signs of Rebounding Achievement at the Start of the 2022-23 School Year" (ED627355). The two main research questions…

Low-income and racial/ethnic minority children are at increased risk of experiencing summer reading loss or declined reading levels due to time away from school. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a 6-week summer reading program would help children maintain or improve reading levels. Four-hundred-fourteen African American and…

As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2019-2020 school year, education systems scrambled to meet the needs of students and families with little available data on how school closures may impact learning. In this study, we produced a series of projections of COVID-19-related learning loss based on (a) estimates from absenteeism literature and (b)…

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…

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…

Researchers have documented a "summer reading setback" where an achievement gap between proficient and struggling readers expands during the summer. This research focuses on 20 rising sixth graders who participated in a summer independent reading initiative using Nook digital readers. Using a qualitative exploratory design and content…

Current national and international research indicates the summer break can negatively affect students' reading achievement. To counter this effect, our primary school with a range of students worked in collaboration with our local public library to plan and implement a summer reading programme. The purpose of the programme was to increase…

This study of 952 fifth and sixth graders in Washington, DC, and Alexandria, Virginia, found that students who were offered the "Higher Achievement" program had higher test scores in mathematical problem solving and were more likely to be admitted to and attend private competitive high schools. "Higher Achievement" is a…

The achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students and their traditional counterparts has continued to be a problem in education. Based on cognitive constructivist theory and enrichment theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between scores on a high-stakes achievement test and participation in a summer…

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…

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 study examined whether providing summer reading books to economically disadvantaged first- and second-grade students for three consecutive summers improved reading achievement. The study analyzed data on about 1,300 students from 17 high-poverty elementary schools in two large districts in Florida. Student-level reading achievement was…

In this article, we describe and report on the results of a study in Texas that tested 2 models of professional development for classroom teachers as a way of improving their practices and increasing the reading achievement of their students. To meet this goal, 44 participating teachers in grades 2-8 learned to teach their students cognitive…