Do Summer Reading Programs Help Disadvantaged Students?
By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 6/26/2008
Do summer reading programs really work? That’s what Dominican University’s Graduate School Library and Information Science (GSLIS) is hoping to find out. It’s launching phase two of a three year research project studying the impact that summer reading programs have on disadvantaged third and fourth grade students.
The Illinois-based GSLIS is partnering with the Center for Summer Learning at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University with the help of a $290,224 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant.
This project, titled “Do Public Library Summer Reading Programs Impact Student Achievement?” is studying whether summer reading programs offered through public libraries and elementary school partnerships affect children’s attitudes about reading and whether these programs help students retain, and possibly expand, their literacy skills over the summer.
“Because over 95 percent of public libraries in the United States offer summer
reading programs in their communities, this research promises to be a major contribution to both the education and library science fields,” said Susan Roman, dean of Dominican’s GSLIS and principal investigator for the study.
The first phase of the study was recruitment. Eleven pairs of public libraries and elementary schools that had a history of working together were chosen to participate. Project activities took place in schools at the end of the 2007-2008 school year, will continue into the beginning of the 2008-09 year, and occur in public libraries during the summer of 2008. Students who participate, with their parents’ permission, will take a reading ability test at the beginning of the summer (conclusion of third grade) and at the end of the summer (start of fourth grade). At the same time, schools will distribute student, parent, and teacher surveys.
Structured interviews will also be conducted with librarians to investigate the impact of summer reading programs. Findings will be reported during 2009.
Additional information, including the list of library and school partnerships, is available at tinyurl.com/2o2zns. For more information, email project coordinator Carole Fiore at cfiore@dom.edu.
