Summer Reading and the Ethnic Achievement Gap

A number of studies have shown that low-income and minority students undergo larger summer reading losses than their middle-class and White classmates, and that reading is the only activity that is consistently related to summer learning. The purpose of this study was to explore whether reading books during summer vacation improved fall reading proficiency, and whether access to books increased the volume of summer reading. The results from the multivariate regression analyses suggest that the effect of reading 4 to 5 books on fall reading scores is potentially large enough to prevent a decline in reading achievement scores from the spring to the fall. Furthermore, children who reported easy access to books also read more books. The findings have implications for designing school-based summer reading programs and for conducting future experiments that confirm the correlational findings from this study.