Stop the Achievement Gap in One Easy Step!

I just read this article and I want to share it with everyone who cares about children and their success.

One Equally Effective but Lower-Cost Option to Summer School by Richard L. Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen demonstrates the importance of children reading during the summer. That's it. If kids read self-selected books during the summer they don't lose ground.

"...children from low-income families reliably lose reading skills every summer while middle-class children actually gain a bit between June and September!...

• Reading growth did not differ between the two groups (rich and poor children) during the school year.
• By ninth grade, however, the reading achievement gap was about three years wide (ninth vs. sixth grade).
• Most of the reading achievement gap at ninth grade was due to the differential effects of summer vacation on children from families with different levels of wealth".

"Just improving poor children’s access to books they can read and want to read may seem too simple an idea for improving reading achievement. But the evidence is clear. When children from low-income families are given the opportunity to select books for summer reading they will read those books during the summer months."