The organizers of a statewide campaign to encourage schoolhouse districts to offer quality summer enrichment programs accept documented gains in learning and growth in social skills that they predictable would benefit low-income, minority students in their programs.

Through its Summer Matters initiative in a dozen communities, the Partnership for Children and Youth has promoted full-twenty-four hours programs that are more like summer camp than traditional summer schools. Nearly of the programs are partnerships between metropolis departments of recreation and school districts.

Students at Sacramento's summer program at Sam Brannan Middle School meet at a community garden, one of of their summer learning projects. Photo courtesy of Partnership for Children and Youth.

Students at Sacramento's summer program at Sam Brannan Eye School meet at a community garden, one of of their summertime learning projects. Credit: Partnership for Children and Youth.

"Programs practise non accept to wait similar traditional summer school to go proficient results that are engaging and inspiring for students. There is non necessarily a meliorate return on a boring program," said Katie Brackenridge, senior director for Out of School Time Initiatives for the Partnership.

The evaluation of iii summertime programs – in Fresno, Los Angeles and Sacramento ­– constitute particular improvements in literacy skills, as measured past the San Diego Quick, a common vocabulary test. Participants ended the summer having raised their vocabulary one-third of an instructional grade level over a six-week period, with detail growth among those students almost struggling with reading.

The results were surprising and exciting, Brackenridge said, because the literacy component wasn't tied to a particular curriculum. In Fresno, there was a daily silent reading period, but in Sacramento and Los Angeles, reading and other academic content were blended with projects and other activities that engaged students, she said. The gain is significant in the context of summer loss – the backtracking of academic gains that low-income students, denied enriching summer activities, experience. Research has constitute that this opportunity gap contributes to the achievement gap betwixt advantaged and disadvantaged youths.

A Sacramento student shows off a robot he built? during last year's National Summer Learning Day. Credit: Partnership for Children and Youth. (Click to enlarge)

A Sacramento student shows off a robot built during terminal yr'south National Summer Learning Twenty-four hours. Credit: Partnership for Children and Youth. (Click to enlarge)

The programs emphasize developing soft skills – strengthening peer relationships and ties with adults and developing persistence – that shape students' motivation and self-confidence. Summer Matters' assumption, as the written report states, is that "summer programs emphasizing both academic and social components lead to positive outcomes for students: college school-year attendance and achievement, increased motivation to larn, increased feelings of belonging, and reduced participation in risky behavior. These positive outcomes are most likely to result when programs begin in the early on grades, are offered over multiple summers, and focus on prevention and development rather than remediation." The evaluation establish that participants in the Fresno summer program were one-3rd less likely to exist chronically absent than their peers in fall 2012, although the sample was very small, and plant in only one of three programs.

Otherwise, surveys of parents and students produced positive results. More than ii-thirds of parents reported their children'due south attitude toward school and interest in reading improved as a event of the summer program and nearly two-thirds said reading skills had improved. Students in two of the programs reported small only significant increases in their perceptions of their ain work habits and reading effectiveness. Ix out of 10 parents reported that the programs helped children make new friends and get along better with other children.

In surveys, parents reported children's views of school and reading skills improved as a result of the summer programs. (Click to enlarge)

In surveys, parents reported children's views of school and reading skills improved as a upshot of the summertime programs. (Click to enlarge)

The programs in Sacramento and Fresno focused on smoothing the transition to centre school because that's a disquisitional time when, Brackenridge said, "kids make the decision on how they will be as students." The Sacramento summertime plan was located at the middle school that students would nourish with their potential classmates. The intent was to develop friendships and make students feel comfortable in their new school, giving them a leg up on what can exist a difficult aligning.

The three programs that were evaluated had unlike themes.

  • In Fresno, serving 394 middle schoolhouse youths (two-thirds low-income, 8 percent English learners), all of the students read the same volume – "The Crimson Pyramid" last twelvemonth – and organized sports, craft and theater projects around themes in the book.
  • In Sacramento, serving 333 eye schoolhouse youths (75 percent low-income, 25 percent English learners), the focus was creating projects that concentrated on healthy lifestyles and the environment. In surveys, parents reported children's views of school and reading skills improved every bit a event of the summer programs.
  • In Los Angeles, serving 1,380 simple school students (ninety percentage depression-income, a 3rd English learners), at that place was a hands-on scientific discipline and math component with a partnership with NASA.

This summer, the Franklin-McKinley School Commune in San Jose volition become the 13th Summer Matters program. The Partnership for Children and Youth is hoping that more than districts volition adopt the summertime model information technology is developing, once they begin to get more Proposition 98 coin in coming years. Summertime Matters is funded by the Bechtel and Packard foundations. The evaluation, past the organization Public Turn a profit, was likewise funded by the Packard Foundation.

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