Every Summer Counts: A Longitudinal Analysis of Outcomes from the National Summer Learning Project

Abstract

York-and their local community partners. The NSLP study was launched to determine whether-and, if so, how-voluntary summer programs with both academics and enrichment can benefit students. The study spanned three phases. The research team from the RAND Corporation (1) collected formative data for strengthening the five summer programs in 2011 and 2012; (2) examined student outcomes after one summer (2013) and after two summers of programming (2014 and 2015); and (3) examined student outcomes in spring 2017, at the end of three school years after the second summer of programming. This report summarizes the findings of this third phase in the context of earlier findings and offers implications for policy and practice. This report is the seventh in a series of reports based on findings from the NSLP. The previous six are as follows:

Reproducing or Reducing Inequality? The Case of Summer Learning Programs

“…These caveats notwithstanding, we found that summer programs had consistently positive and significant effects. Their effect sizes are mostly modest, consistent with findings from American meta-analyses of summer programs (Cooper et al, 2000;Lynch et al, 2021;McCombs et al, 2020). When viewed in tandem with Table 2, Ontario's summer programs appeared to have raised learning rates while recruiting relatively disadvantaged students, findings that are consistent with the partial compensation perspective.…”

“…that can reverse summer learning losses and narrow achievement gaps (Alexander et al, 2016). Several meta-analyses have evaluated their impacts and show that those generally have positive though sometimes modest or mixed effects (e.g., Aurini & Davies, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013Cooper et al, 1996;Lynch et al, 2021;McCombs et al, 2020). However, for Canadian educational researchers, the existing literature that evaluates summer interventions has at least three limitations.…”

A longitudinal randomized trial of a sustained content literacy intervention from first to second grade: Transfer effects on students’ reading comprehension.

“…Although there are some efforts to strengthen home-school connections around science book reading activities (e.g., Mantzicopoulos et al, 2013), school-year content literacy instruction is largely de-coupled from home-based summer reading interventions. Our approach to sustaining MORE Grade 1 lessons through the summer with opportunities to read thematically related texts may be more cost-effective and easier to scale than either school-year content literacy instruction (Pearson et al, 2020) or classroom-based summer programs (McCombs et al, 2020). Our findings also replicate and extend previous studies indicating that both teacher-directed instruction and wide reading of thematically-related texts enhance growth in students’ domain-general reading (Hwang et al, 2021; Kim et al, 2016).…”