Understanding Summer Learning Loss: Why low-income children need effective summer programming

Abstract

The evidence presented in this paper clearly defines the magnitude of summer learning loss, and hypothesizes how family, parent, and home-life characteristics can play a major role in students’ summer learning loss. Though literature on summer programming continues to grow, there is a frustrating lack of evidence when it comes to really answering the question of how to construct summer programs that will close the achievement gap between low and high-income children. The evidence presented here, however, shows that summer programs do indeed have the potential to close that gap, if constructed in careful, comprehensive manners. [From Introduction}