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Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast Series is provided by the United States Department
of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
Hello. I'm Delia Pompa. Welcome to the Reading Rockets Webcast Series. Today we're going
to talk with two top experts about summer reading.
Joining me we have Ron Fairchild. He's the Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Center
for Learning and a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, School of Education.
Dr. Loriene Roy is President of the American Library Association. She also founded and
directs "If I Can Read I Can Do Anything," a national reading club for native children.
I'd also like to welcome our studio audience of educators and parents. Near the end of
the show they'll share their own questions for our guests. Thank you all for joining
us.
Ron, tell us about summer, what it looks like for kids these days. How does reading fit
into that? And I'm guessing that sort of varies across families and socioeconomic groups.
Absolutely. I think most of us have a really wonderful image of what summer is all about.
It's a time for something different, a time for recreation, a time for vacations and for
creative exploration.
And, unfortunately, the reality for many young people and for many families in this country
is very different from that image. And so we see summer increasingly as a time when
many families are really struggling to find adequate childcare, opportunities for education
and for enrichment.
So what's the effect of spending your summer going to space camp and traveling as opposed
to sitting home watching TV?
Well, research consistently shows that young people who are engaged in constructive learning
activities - like that wonderful example of space camp - kids that are engaged in those
kinds of activities go back to the school in the fall ready to learn, ready to succeed.
And, unfortunately, kids who don't have access to those kinds of opportunities don't have
the same advantages when they go back to school in the fall.
You know, people are shocked, I think, when they find out the impact a summer loss can
have. Has… Summer loss is a term that might be new to some people. Has it always existed?
Well, the first study that was ever conducted on this pattern of seasonal learning differences
and the summer setback was actually conducted in 1906.
Oh, I guess people do know about it.
So I think the research community certainly knows about it. But I don't think it's widely
known and widely accepted, despite the fact that this research has existed for over a
hundred years. So I think that there's a real opportunity to raise awareness about this
issue
Well, how much reading ability do kids really stand to lose over the summer and how does
that impact learning in the classroom?
Well, research shows that all young people are at risk of experiencing some kind of educational
setback during the summer months, especially in the area of math. That's true for everybody.
In the area of reading it's really interesting to look at the research findings. Kids in
high poverty communities consistently lose over two months of reading performance each
and every summer of their elementary school years. And those losses accumulate over time.
Can you talk a little bit about the achievement gap and how summer loss affects that achievement
gap?
Well, the achievement gap generally refers to differences in academic performance between
groups of kids based on family income or some other characteristic. And what we see and-when
we look at the summer pattern and summer learning loss is that kids from low income communities
have this setback of over two months every year of their elementary school years. And
those losses accumulate. So that these early differences in summer learning really account
for a staggering amount of the growth in the achievement gap between kids based on income.
In fact, researchers have traced that achievement gaps' growth in reading performance of close
to two and a half years by the time kids get to middle school. So there's a really significant…
So it's cumulative over the years.
It's cumulative over the years and ultimately when this… A new study that was just released
this past year looked at incoming 9th graders and they were able to track and trace back
to elementary school differences in summer learning. Summer learning opportunities really
accounted for a significant difference in 9th grade incoming reading achievement scores.
Can you talk a little bit about that gap and why there is that difference, what the research
shows about that?
I think what the research shows is that some families, particularly middle and upper income
families, have access to all kinds of enrichment opportunities. They regularly send their kids
to camps and participate in all kinds of enrichment experiences. Whereas lower income families
don't have the same kind of access to choices and to opportunities over the summer months.
So we think it's critical that public libraries and other public agencies and camps and nonprofits
really provide those opportunities and give more working families the choices and opportunities
that they need for their kids.
So as educators we need to step in.
We absolutely do, I think. Unfortunately, there are all kinds of resources in a faucet
that shuts off for kids during the summer and there aren't the same kind of guarantees
during the summer months for education, for meals, for opportunities for physical activities
and those kinds of things that occur during the school year. A lot of that stuff shuts
down for kids during the summer so we need to figure out ways to turn that back on.
How does a summer program compare with a summer school program? Is there a difference?
Well, I think many of us probably have a very negative view of what summer school looks
like. I think that's rooted in this idea that summer school is this punitive, remedial model
of programming where kids have to be there, where they don't want to be. And what we think
is really exciting and interesting when we look out into the community and into the field
of summer programming more broadly, is a lot of people are starting to think that that
model isn't really what's going to get us where we need to go with respect to solving
this problem of a summer opportunity gap and the resource gap that we've been talking about
today.
So we see a lot more school districts redesigning their summer programs, making them summer
learning opportunities. And they're partnering with nonprofits, YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs,
other entities, public libraries, to come in and add resources to what used to be a
very small two hour/three hour summer school program. It's now slowing becoming more of
a six hour/full day, four to six weeks summer program opportunity. And we think that's a
really significant shift and I think could really go a long way toward addressing this
problem.
Well, we have, over the past several years, done a lot of research on these different
models of summer programs and have a set of characteristics available on our website,
www.summerlearning.org, where we refer people to those, and then a set of tools and resources
for people who are interested in starting programs like this.
I think there's a significant need out there for more summer opportunities, and I think
that those kinds of resources can certainly point people to-in the right direction.
For more information about how you can help the struggling readers in your lives, please
visit us on the web at www.readingrockets.org. And while you're there, please let us know
what you thought about this program.
Click on webcast to find our online survey. Again, thank you for joining us and take care.
Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast Series is provided by the United States Department
of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.