A Pilot Study of a Abstract

Kindergarten Summer This pilot study examined an implementation of

a kindergarten summer school reading program
School Reading in 4 high-poverty urban schools. The program
targeted both basic reading skills and oral lan-
guage development. Students were randomly
Program in High- assigned to a treatment group (n ⫽ 25) or a
typical practice comparison group (n ⫽ 28)
Poverty Urban Schools within each school; however, randomization
was compromised due to school circumstances,
resulting in a quasi-experimental design. In-
struction was delivered by the schools’ regular
teachers during 20 full-day summer school ses-
Carolyn A. Denton sions. Each day treatment group students re-
Emily J. Solari ceived large-group listening comprehension
and vocabulary lessons anchored in storybook
Dennis J. Ciancio reading, along with small-group lessons focused
Steven A. Hecht on basic reading skills and listening comprehen-
sion. The intervention was associated with im-
Paul R. Swank proved outcomes for treatment group students
University of Texas Health Science Center at in word reading and listening comprehension
Houston with mixed results for phonemic awareness and
no significant between-group differences in
reading fluency or vocabulary. Such an ap-
proach is potentially efficacious, suggesting the
need for further research.

Although recent educational initiatives

have recognized the importance of early
reading instruction, there remains a dispar-
ity in reading achievement between stu-
dents from high- and low-income families.
According to results of the 2007 National
Assessment of Educational Progress report
(Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007), only half of
U.S. fourth-grade students who are eligible
for the free or reduced-price lunch program
are able to read at or above a basic level and
only 17% of the students within this low
The Elementary School Journal socioeconomic group read proficiently. In
Volume 110, Number 4
© 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
contrast, 79% of students ineligible for the
0013-5984/2010/11004-0001$10.00 free or reduced-price lunch program read

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424
at or above the basic level and 44% of the
students within this higher socioeconomic
group are proficient readers. In the absence
of quality reading intervention, it is highly
likely that primary-grade students with
reading difficulties will experience contin-
ued reading problems in the upper elemen-
tary and secondary grades (Francis, Shay-
witz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1996;
Juel, 1988; Torgesen & Burgess, 1998). Thus
the failure to provide effective instruction
virtually guarantees continuing gaps in
reading performance between students
with and without economic disadvantage.
Early Reading Instruction
The problem is daunting but not insur-
mountable. There is converging research ev-
idence that most young students at risk for
reading difficulties can make adequate
progress when provided with quality class-
room reading instruction along with short-
term supplemental intervention if needed
(Mathes & Denton, 2002; Torgesen, 2000).
This quality reading instruction in the pri-
mary grades addresses phonemic awareness,
phonics, spelling, reading fluency, vocabu-
lary, and reading comprehension (Foorman
& Torgesen, 2001; National Reading Panel,
2000; Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, &
Seidenberg, 2001; Snow, Burns, & Griffin,
1998). It is particularly important that young
students at risk for reading difficulties re-
ceive explicit instruction in phonological
awareness and phonics with ample opportu-
nities to apply skills in connected text (Na-
tional Reading Panel [NRP], 2000; Snow et
al., 1998). In their synthesis of research, the
NRP found an effect size for phonics-based
interventions of 0.98 for struggling readers in
kindergarten through second grade (Ehri,
Nunes, Stahl, & Willows, 2001).
In addition to phonological processing,
oral language proficiency has been found
to be an important predictor of later read-
ing ability (Bishop & Adams, 1990; Scarbor-
ough, 1989). The NRP (2000) findings indi-
cate that vocabulary instruction is most
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THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL
effective when words are taught both di-
rectly and indirectly through exposure in the
context of reading and listening, when stu-
dents receive multiple exposures to vocabu-
lary words, and when students are actively
engaged in vocabulary instruction. Regard-
ing reading comprehension, the NRP recom-
mended that instruction should guide stu-
dents toward an awareness of their own
cognitive processes while reading (i.e., meta-
cognitive processing). In order for many stu-
dents to learn to comprehend text, it is nec-
essary that teachers model and directly teach
the practice of applying cognitive and meta-
cognitive comprehension strategies. In a ran-
domized experimental study, Solari and Ger-
ber (2008) found that kindergarten students
who received direct instruction in vocabulary
words as well as strategies for comprehen-
sion of text that was read to them signifi-
cantly outperformed their peers in listening
comprehension. Additionally, effects of the
vocabulary and listening comprehension in-
tervention in kindergarten were detected in
first grade when treatment students outper-
formed comparison students on a simple
reading-comprehension task.
Summer Learning
Research has suggested that students
who come from low-income families tend
to lose ground during the summer months
while those from middle- and high-income
families are more likely to maintain the
knowledge and skills learned during the
previous school year (Alexander, Entwisle,
& Olson, 2001, 2007; Borman, Benson, &
Overman, 2005; Cooper, Nye, Charlton,
Lindsay, & Greathouse, 1996). For example,
Cooper et al. (1996) found that, on average,
children from low-income backgrounds
showed significant academic losses, ending
the summer about 3 months behind their
middle-class peers.
Alexander and colleagues (2001, 2007)
had a different, but no less important find-
ing when they analyzed the progress made
during the school year and summer break
JUNE 2010

by high-, middle-, and low-SES children, us-
ing longitudinal data collected from a ran-
dom representative sample of students in
Baltimore. The researchers analyzed scores
on the reading-comprehension subtest of the
California Achievement Test administered in
the fall and spring of grades 1–5, and again at
the end of grade 9, reporting a discrepancy
between scores of high- and low-SES chil-
dren of 26.48 scale score points at the begin-
ning of first grade. Between the fall and
spring test administrations in grades 1–5
(during the school year), this score difference
was virtually unchanged, indicating that
schooling was effective in at least maintain-
ing the reading levels of low-income students
relative to high-SES students. However, the
gap widened to 48.48 points by the end of
grade 5 due to changes between the spring
and fall test administrations (i.e., over the
summer breaks). Interestingly, the results in-
dicated that the high-SES group made signif-
icant gains over the summer while the low-
SES group declined only slightly or remained
unchanged. By the end of grade 9 there was
a difference of 73.16 points between the
scores of the high- and low-SES groups.
Effects of Summer School Programs
Although common sense suggests that
summer school programs should be effec-
tive in reducing summer learning losses or
facilitating reading gains over the summer
break, existing research on the topic has
produced mixed results. There have been
few experimental or quasi-experimental
studies in this area, leaving many unan-
swered questions regarding summer school
program effectiveness. Cooper, Charlton,
Valentine, and Muhlenbruck (2000) per-
formed a meta-analysis of research on 93
summer school programs (with only a
small number of studies that had compari-
son groups), finding average gains of one-
fifth of a standard deviation for participat-
ing students. This review suggested that
middle-class students benefited from sum-
mer school more than their lower-SES
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SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 425
peers. Other authors have suggested that
the quality of summer school programs
tends to be higher in schools that serve
higher-income populations (e.g., Roderick,
Bryk, Jacob, Easton, & Allensworth, 1999).
Lauer et al. (2006) conducted a compre-
hensive meta-analysis of the effects of read-
ing and mathematics intervention provided
outside of the regular school day, both after
school and during summer school. Only
studies that included comparison groups
were included, but few had true experi-
mental designs. The majority were con-
ducted with students who were either low-
performing or from low-income families.
The researchers identified 30 studies with
reading outcomes published between 1986
and 2003 that met their inclusionary crite-
ria. Based on their analyses, Lauer and col-
leagues reported a mean effect size for out-
of-school reading interventions (combining
summer school and after school programs)
of .13, with somewhat larger effects (.22) for
studies involving students in the lower
elementary grades. The meta-analysis in-
cluded five studies that specifically exam-
ined the effects of summer school reading
intervention for students in kindergarten
through first grade, with widely varying
effect sizes (ranging from ⫺.17 to .73).
In an experimental study, Schacter and
Jo (2005) demonstrated the efficacy of a
summer school reading intervention for
first-grade students at risk for reading dif-
ficulties. Students who were randomly as-
signed to an experimental condition partic-
ipated in a 2 hour reading program 5 days
per week for 7 weeks. Instruction in both
word- and text-level reading skills was pro-
vided in both whole-group and small-
group formats. The program consisted of
40 minutes of small-group reading instruc-
tion, 15 minutes of whole-group instruc-
tion, 15 minutes of independent phonics
practice, 10 minutes of paired reading us-
ing decodable text, 10 minutes of teacher
read-aloud, and 30 minutes of writing ac-
tivities. Results indicated significant differ-
ences between the experimental and control
426
groups at posttest on measures of decoding
and comprehension. Furthermore, these
gains were maintained at 3 months and at the
end of the following academic school year.
This study was unique in that the interven-
tion addressed both word-level and text-level
skills. Extant research suggests that summer
reading programs for at-risk populations
tend to concentrate instructional time on
word-level reading skills with less attention
to vocabulary and comprehension (Roderick
et al., 1999).
Purpose of the Study
Given the limited and contradictory re-
search base relative to summer school read-
ing programs, as well as the continued
prevalence of reading difficulties among
students from economically disadvantaged
backgrounds, there is a need for further
research examining the efficacy of summer
school reading intervention provided in the
early grades. The purpose of this pilot
study was to examine the effects of an im-
plementation of a kindergarten summer
school reading program that focused on
both word-level (i.e., phonemic awareness,
phonics) and text-level (i.e., vocabulary,
comprehension) skills in four high-poverty
urban schools. We addressed the following
research question: Is participation in the
experimental summer school reading pro-
gram associated with better outcomes in
word reading, phonemic awareness, vocab-
ulary, listening comprehension, and oral
reading fluency than participation in typi-
cal summer school instruction? We hypoth-
esized that children who received the ex-
perimental reading program would have
higher outcomes in each domain than those
who received typical summer school in-
struction.
Method
Schools and Participants
This study was conducted in four ele-
mentary schools in a large urban school
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THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL
district in the Southwest. The schools were
all rated academically acceptable by the
state education agency. The average ethnic
composition of the schools was 50% Afri-
can American, 48% Hispanic, 1% white,
and 1% Asian and other ethnicities. On av-
erage, 95% of the students who attended
the schools were classified as economically
disadvantaged.
Schools 1 and 2 served students in pre-
kindergarten through fifth grade. Each of
these schools had two kindergarten summer
school classrooms. In each school the teacher
in one classroom taught the experimental
reading program while the other teacher im-
plemented typical summer school instruc-
tion. School 3 served only early childhood
through kindergarten and was paired with
School 4 which served only grades 1–5, be-
cause most of the students in School 3 would
attend School 4 when they entered first
grade. In this study School 3 provided the
comparison classroom and School 4 pro-
vided the experimental classroom. School 4
did not typically offer kindergarten summer
school but was piloting a model in which
kindergarten students who would be enter-
ing the school as first graders would attend
summer school at School 4 in order to be-
come acclimated to their new school. A fifth
school that agreed to participate had to be
dropped from the study because its kinder-
garten summer school attendance was signif-
icantly lower than expected and did not al-
low for the provision of both an experimental
and comparison classroom within the school.
Students. All students who attended
English-only summer school classes in par-
ticipating schools were eligible to partici-
pate in the study, including those with
identified mild to moderate disabilities.
Students were selected by their schools us-
ing the schools’ normal procedures for de-
termining which students attend summer
school. Parents and guardians of these stu-
dents were informed of this decision by
school personnel. In May, before the end of
the regular school year, we randomly as-
signed these students to the treatment or
JUNE 2010
 SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 427

comparison summer school classrooms and TABLE 1. Student Demographic Information by

Group
administered standardized pretests. Sum-
mer school instruction began during the Treatment Comparison
first week of June. (n ⫽ 25) (n ⫽ 28)
Summer school was also open to any Characteristics n % n %
student whose parents wanted them to at-
Ethnicity:
tend. Eight additional students who had African-American 21 84 19 68
not been selected by their schools enrolled Hispanic 2 8 8 28
in summer school after the term began. White 0 0 1 4
Asian and other 2 8 0 0
Since school personnel needed to immedi- Gender:
ately assign these children to a classroom, Male 16 64 7 25
they were asked to alternate the assignment Female 9 36 21 75
Economically
between the treatment and comparison disadvantaged:
classes within their schools and thus these Yes 23 92 25 89
students were not randomly assigned to No 1 4 2 7
Data unavailable 1 4 1 4
condition. We have reason to believe that
the schools did not strictly alternate be-
tween treatment and comparison class-
rooms when placing these students, but day of summer school at participating
tended to place students with lower read- schools and had some data (44 treatment,
ing performance in treatment classrooms. 48 comparison). Twenty-six of these stu-
For example, the mean pretest standard dents withdrew from summer school be-
scores on the Woodcock-Johnson Tests fore the end of the term, eight others had
of Achievement–III (WJ III; Woodcock, incomplete standardized test data for vari-
McGrew, & Mather, 2001) letter-word iden- ous reasons, and five were excluded be-
tification subtest for the treatment and cause the schools violated their randomiza-
comparison students who were placed by tion to condition. This left a final sample of
their schools were 105.25 (SD ⫽ 11.79) and 53 students (25 treatment, 28 comparison).
120.75 (SD ⫽ 8.58), respectively. Therefore, The mean age of treatment-group students
we characterize this pilot study as quasi- at posttest was 74.68 months (SD ⫽ 3.82),
experimental rather than experimental. In and the mean age of comparison-group stu-
addition, 10 students who had been ran- dents was 75.14 months (SD ⫽ 3.61). Table
domized to the comparison condition were 1 displays other demographic characteris-
moved by school personnel to the treat- tics, revealing gender differences between
ment classrooms without the researchers’ the groups (the treatment group was pre-
knowledge. We did not include the data dominantly male, while the comparison
from these students in our analyses. group was predominantly female).
In total, some assessment data were col- Teachers. Three teachers delivered the
lected for 147 students. For nearly all of experimental curriculum while three other
these students we collected standardized teachers delivered their typical summer
pretest data before the end of the regular school instruction. All of the participating
school year. Of the 147 students, 44 did not teachers were regular school district em-
attend summer school at all, leaving a sam- ployees selected by their schools to teach
ple of 103. Of these, 11 were dropped from summer school. During the previous school
the study because they attended the school year all of the teachers had taught kinder-
in which there were too few kindergarten garten except for one, who had taught first
summer school students to form treatment grade. Three noncertified paraprofessionals
and comparison classrooms, leaving a sam- also delivered small-group instruction in
ple of 92 students who attended at least one reading comprehension in the treatment

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428
classrooms. The research team provided
the treatment-group teachers and parapro-
fessionals with 2 full days of professional
development, periodic coaching support,
instructional materials, and fully devel-
oped lesson plans for implementing the
curriculum.
Measures
At pretest and posttest we administered
standardized assessments measuring pho-
nological awareness, word reading, text
reading fluency, listening comprehension,
and vocabulary. In addition, we adminis-
tered researcher-developed, curriculum-
based measures (CBMs). All assessments
were individually administered to each
participating child by a trained adult exam-
iner. Pretests were administered to most
students in May during the last 2 weeks of
the regular school year; students who came
to summer school after it had already be-
gun without having been previously iden-
tified by their schools were pretested dur-
ing the first week of summer school. Post-
testing occurred for all children during the
last 3 days of the summer school session.
Standardized measures. The standard-
ized measures were (a) the WJ III (Woodcock
et al., 2001) letter-word identification and oral
comprehension subtests; (b) the Comp-
rehensive Test of Phonological Processing
(CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte,
1999) blending-words and sound-matching
subtests; (c) the Texas Primary Reading In-
ventory (TPRI; Foorman, Fletcher, & Francis,
2004) oral reading fluency task; and (d) the
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test– 4 (PPVT-4;
Dunn & Dunn, 2007).
The WJ III is a nationally standardized,
individually administered achievement bat-
tery widely used in reading intervention
research. Letter-word identification as-
sesses the ability to identify letters and read
words presented in a list format. Split-half
reliability is .98 –.99 in the age of interest. In
the oral comprehension subtest the partici-
pant listens to sentences or short passages
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THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL
and supplies missing words. Split-half reli-
ability is .82–.85 in the age range of interest.
For WJ III analyses we used W scores, a
continuously scaled standard score.
The CTOPP blending-words and sound-
matching subtests assess phonological
awareness. The reliability of the CTOPP was
investigated using estimates of content sam-
pling, time sampling, and scorer differences.
Most of the average internal consistency and
alternate form reliability coefficients exceed
.80. The test/retest coefficients range from .70
to .92. In the blending-words subtest the sub-
ject is orally presented with isolated parts of
a word and is asked to put these parts to-
gether to make the whole word (e.g., t-r-a-p:
trap). In the sound-matching subtest students
select from pictures the one that represents a
word beginning or ending with the same
sound as a target word (e.g., Which word
starts with the same sound as pan: pig, hat, or
cone?). For CTOPP subtests we analyzed raw
scores because some students could not be
assigned standard scores at pretest due to
very low raw scores.
The TPRI oral reading fluency task is an
individually administered test of fluent and
accurate reading of connected text. Stu-
dents’ fluency is evaluated with a timed
1-minute oral reading sample. The score is
the number of correctly read words per
minute. Researchers have consistently doc-
umented a moderate to strong positive re-
lationship between oral reading fluency
and reading comprehension for students in
grades 1–5 (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins,
2001). In the current study we administered
the same TPRI story, which is approxi-
mately on a beginning-of-first-grade level,
at both pretest and posttest. Analyses uti-
lized raw scores.
The PPVT-4 is a well-established stan-
dardized receptive vocabulary assessment
in which students select from pictures the
one that matches a word pronounced by
the tester. Split-half reliability is .93–.97 in
the age range of interest. The PPVT-4 man-
ual recommends using growth scale value
(GSV) scores for measuring change in a
JUNE 2010

student’s vocabulary over time, stating that
the GSV measures “an examinee’s vocabu-
lary with respect to an absolute scale of
knowledge. As an examinee’s vocabulary
grows, the GSV will increase” (Dunn &
Dunn, 2007, p. 21).
Curriculum-based measures. The CBMs
were designed to assess mastery of con-
cepts and skills taught in the treatment
classrooms. Pretest results on the CBMs
were used by teachers to guide their in-
structional planning. The reading CBMs as-
sessed (a) identification of letter-sound
correspondences (30 items consisting of
upper- and lower-case letters; 15 letters that
were taught in the research curriculum and
15 untaught letters), (b) decodable word
reading (25 three-letter words composed of
letter-sounds taught in the research curric-
ulum), (c) high-frequency word reading (30
items; 15 words students were taught in the
experimental curriculum and 15 untaught
words), and (d) identification of pictures
representing the vocabulary words that
were taught in the program (54 items).
Each measure was untimed and individu-
ally administered. Raw scores consisted of
the number of correct items.
Procedures
The summer school session lasted for 20
days in June and early July. Classes were
held daily from 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Treatment-group students attended an av-
erage of 18.24 days of summer school
(SD ⫽ 1.83); comparison-group students at-
tended an average of 18.54 days (SD ⫽
1.60). Class sizes at the beginning of the
summer school session ranged from 11 to
16 in the treatment classrooms and 12 to 16
in the comparison classrooms.
The experimental reading intervention
was incorporated across the school day and
followed a consistent daily schedule. Each
day teachers read the same picture book
aloud to the children during two 45-minute
whole-group sessions: once in the morning
and again in the afternoon. The morning
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SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 429
read-aloud session included planned interac-
tive comprehension instruction, while the af-
ternoon session incorporated planned inter-
active vocabulary instruction. Each of these
sessions was followed by a set of small-group
rotations. During each rotation (in the morn-
ing and again in the afternoon) small groups
of children rotated between two teaching ta-
bles and two learning centers. Each group
spent 20 minutes at each of these four sta-
tions; every 20 minutes the teacher cued the
students to move to their next station. At one
teaching table, the teacher delivered basic
reading instruction during both the morning
and afternoon rotations, while at the second
teaching table the paraprofessional taught
mathematics in the morning and reading
comprehension in the afternoon. Each small-
group comprehension lesson focused on the
book that had been read aloud during the
days’ large-group sessions. Thus, every day
each child received a total of four 20-minute
small-group lessons (two basic reading, one
mathematics, and one reading comprehen-
sion) at the teaching tables and worked at a
total of four learning centers. At one learning
center students independently completed a
journal writing activity designed to reinforce
vocabulary that had recently been taught.
Other learning centers addressed reading
and math objectives and were planned by the
individual teachers. Figure 1 illustrates a
sample daily schedule. Small-group sizes
ranged from two to five students; most teach-
ers taught their most at-risk students in
smaller groups and higher-performing stu-
dents in larger groups.
Contents of the reading program. The
experimental reading program was devel-
oped by the authors specifically for this study
and is unpublished. Treatment-group stu-
dents received explicit, systematic instruction
in phonemic awareness, phonics, recognition
of high-frequency words, and sentence read-
ing in the two basic reading lessons every
day. Teachers provided direct instruction in
new phonics and phonemic awareness skills,
and students practiced these skills through a
variety of hands-on activities with teacher
430
FIG. 1.—Sample daily schedule for summer school research curriculum
feedback. Emphasis was placed on teaching
students to blend sounds together to sound
out words and to map sounds to print to
spell words phonetically (i.e., recognize
sounds in spoken words and record these
sound with letters). Students applied reading
skills and strategies in brief decodable text.
Listening comprehension instruction took
place in both whole-group and small-group
formats. Whole-group comprehension in-
struction consisted of a whole-book read-
aloud with discussion focused through guid-
ing questions written specifically for each
book. Small-group instruction included ex-
plicit, direct instruction in three comprehen-
sion skills: finding the main idea, summariz-
ing, and sequencing. The length of material
to be comprehended increased as students
progressed within each of these skills. For
example, during the first few intervention
sessions, concentrating on direct recall of
facts from text, students were presented with
short sentences and asked to answer ques-
tions related to facts in the sentences. Once
students mastered this skill at the sentence
level, they moved onto multisentence pas-
sages and finally to full paragraphs.
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THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL
Vocabulary instruction occurred in a
whole-group setting and through indepen-
dent practice in the form of journal writing.
The whole-group instruction consisted of a
storybook read-aloud with integrated explicit
vocabulary instruction. Three new vocabu-
lary words were taught daily (words were
preselected from the storybook text). Vocab-
ulary instruction consisted of introducing the
words in the context of the storybook, pro-
viding students with a short and easy-to-
remember definition, teaching the meaning
of the words in new contexts or usages, and
practicing word use orally and through writ-
ing and drawing pictures associated with the
words (at the journal-writing center).
Fidelity of implementation. We col-
lected observational data to measure the
fidelity with which teachers and parapro-
fessionals implemented the experimental
program. Treatment-group teachers and
paraprofessionals were observed during in-
struction using an observation instrument
that allowed for ratings of program adher-
ence, student on-task behavior, and instruc-
tional quality. Instructional quality for all
intervention components was evaluated
JUNE 2010

using a three-point scale rating the teach-
ers’ provision of appropriate positive and
corrective feedback, lesson pacing, redirec-
tion of off-task behavior, use of instruc-
tional time, and warmth and enthusiasm
toward students (with a rating of 3 mean-
ing the behavior was observed for “most of
the lesson,” 2 meaning “some of the les-
son,” and 1 meaning “rarely”). We report
fidelity as percentages, comparing each
teacher’s ratings for each observation with
a “perfect” rating on the instrument.
Each teacher was observed three times
delivering basic reading instruction and
two times delivering comprehension and
vocabulary instruction. Each paraprofes-
sional was observed two times delivering
small-group comprehension instruction.
Observations of basic reading were con-
ducted by the first author, who was the
lead developer of that component. Obser-
vations of comprehension instruction were
conducted by the second author, the pri-
mary developer of that component. Obser-
vations of vocabulary instruction were con-
ducted by a research assistant who had a
primary role in the development of that
component. Since each component was ob-
served by only one person, interobserver
reliability was not established. On some
occasions, observations of basic reading
skills, comprehension, and vocabulary may
have been completed on the same day, but
sometimes these were conducted on differ-
ent days.
For the basic reading (decoding and
text reading) instructional component, pro-
gram adherence was defined as implement-
ing the lessons as they were described in
the teacher’s manual, which was loosely
scripted. Treatment-group teachers had av-
erage scores of 95% on program adherence,
student on-task behavior, instructional
quality, and average overall fidelity.
For the vocabulary component, pro-
gram adherence was defined as (a) provid-
ing an understandable word definition or
explanation for each target word, (b) pro-
viding explicit vocabulary instruction, (c)
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SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 431
engaging students in using the words, and
(d) using the words in novel contexts and in
varied grammatical forms. These were in-
corporated into the program materials pro-
vided to the treatment teachers and they
achieved an average rating of 100% for
these indicators. Their mean rating for stu-
dent on-task behavior was 98%, and the
mean quality rating was 96%.
For the large-group comprehension com-
ponent, treatment fidelity indicators included
(a) introducing the book to students in an
understandable way, (b) providing students
with a problem/guiding question, (c) asking
appropriate questions to guide students to
answer the problem/guiding question, (d)
engaging students in discussion of the key
elements of the book, and (e) allowing stu-
dents multiple opportunities to respond.
Treatment-group teachers were provided
curriculum materials that included these ele-
ments, and, on average, they achieved a rat-
ing of 99% for these indicators. The mean
rating for on-task behavior was 97% and the
mean quality rating was 95%. The nature of
the small-group comprehension instruction
was different in that it was more focused on
explicit instruction in comprehension skills,
and therefore fidelity of implementation was
measured according to a different set of cri-
teria: (a) presenting the lesson in a clear way,
(b) modeling expected student behaviors
when needed, (c) providing students multi-
ple opportunities to respond, (d) scaffolding
responses when necessary, and (e) providing
appropriate corrective feedback. Paraprofes-
sionals in the treatment group achieved an
average rating of 96% for these behaviors
during small-group instruction. The mean
on-task behavior rating was 98% and the
mean quality rating was 94%.
Comparison classroom instruction. Each
comparison classroom teacher was observed
during one full reading lesson to verify the
nature of typical school practice. Following
the observation, each teacher was asked
whether the observed lesson was typical of
their daily instruction, and all stated that this
was the case. Observations indicated that in-
432 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL

TABLE 2. Pretest and Posttest Observed Score Means and Standard Deviations; Cohen’s d Effect Sizes
Comparing Groups on Pretest-Posttest Difference Scores

Treatment (n ⫽ 25) Comparison (n ⫽ 28)

Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest
Measure M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) d
a
Letter-word ID 105.08 (11.62) 109.64 (11.86)* 106.89 (17.87) 106.46 (17.89) .91
Oral comprehensiona,d 98.08 (9.67) 100.75 (7.74)* 99.00 (11.67) 99.08 (10.46) .45
b
Blending words 11.56 (1.73) 13.16 (2.19)* 11.89 (2.66) 12.25 (2.73) .76
b
Sound matching 9.28 (2.23) 9.84 (2.34) 9.50 (1.99) 9.71 (2.67) .27
Oral reading fluencyc,e 27.10 (26.91) 32.10 (29.02) 35.88 (29.68) 43.73 (33.95) ⫺.28
Picture vocabularya,d 86.42 (8.91) 89.75 (7.62) 89.61 (10.67) 92.00 (7.84) .31
Letter-sounds CBMc,e 23.82 (4.65) 25.23 (2.93) 22.81 (6.84) 24.00 (6.79) .10
High-frequency CBMc,e 17.05 (10.52) 23.36 (7.74)* 19.12 (10.88) 21.73 (10.62) .81
Decodable-words CBMc,e 10.73 (8.09) 19.55 (6.71) 13.77 (9.87) 17.77 (8.75) .76
Vocabulary CBMc,e 36.82 (4.93) 42.00 (5.89) 37.50 (5.23) 41.69 (6.11) .30

NOTE.—Letter-word ID ⫽ Letter-word identification; CBM ⫽ curriculum-based measure.

a
Standard scores reported.
b
Scale scores reported.
c
Raw scores reported.
d
Treatment group n ⫽ 25; comparison group n ⫽ 26.
e
Treatment group n ⫽ 22; comparison group n ⫽ 26.
*p ⬍ .05, one tailed.

struction in comparison classrooms differed
from that in the treatment classrooms on im-
portant dimensions. All observed lessons, ex-
cept for a few minutes in one classroom
when students worked in learning centers,
were implemented in whole-class formats.
The comparison-group teachers were
observed implementing a variety of activi-
ties. In the first classroom, the teacher im-
plemented a published summer school cur-
riculum, including phonological awareness
and worksheet activities as well as individ-
ual text reading. Students in this classroom
were mostly on task during instruction,
which included explicit modeling of the
use of analogies to known words to help
spell unknown words. No direct instruc-
tion was observed in the second classroom;
students recited poems and sang songs re-
lated to alphabetic knowledge, after which
the teacher read a book aloud to the class.
In the third classroom students participated
in chants and songs related to alphabetic
knowledge for a portion of the class, fol-
lowed by an activity related to word read-
ing and spelling and another activity in
which volunteers read sentences. The les-
son concluded with the teacher reading
aloud to the students. Little direct instruc-
tion was observed in this classroom.
We observed no formal vocabulary in-
struction in comparison-group classrooms.
On very few occasions teachers paused
while reading aloud to students to provide
a quick explanation of a word, but this ac-
tivity did not meet the criteria described
above for the treatment condition. Simi-
larly, we did not observe purposeful in-
struction focused on comprehension. Refer-
ences to comprehension took place during
whole-group lessons when the teacher read
a book to or with the students and asked
them for predictions related to the book.
However, we did not observe a book read-
aloud session for one of the three compar-
ison teachers, and it is possible that she
may have provided contextualized vocab-
ulary or comprehension instruction during
such a read-aloud format.
Results
Descriptive statistics for all pretest and
posttest measures by treatment condition
can be found in Table 2. For the WJ III
subtests, analyses were performed using W

JUNE 2010

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 SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 433

TABLE 3. Posttest Effects for Pretest, Intervention Group, and Teacher on Standardized Measures

WJ III Letter-Word WJ III Oral

Identification Comprehension CTOPP Blending Words
Source df F p df F p df F p

Pretest 1, 46 283.98 ⬍.0001 1, 44 16.63 .0001 1, 46 41.70 ⬍.0001

Group 1, 46 5.71 .011 1, 44 2.83 .049 1, 46 3.54 .033
Teacher 4, 46 3.04 .013 4, 44 .83 .257 4, 46 2.27 .038

Peabody Picture
CTOPP Sound Matching TPRI Oral Reading Fluency Vocabulary
df F p df F p df F p

Pretest 1, 46 33.84 ⬍.0001 1, 40 289.63 ⬍.0001 1, 44 90.88 ⬍.0001

Group 1, 46 .015 .350 1, 40 .29 .295 1, 44 .38 .269
Teacher 4, 46 .099 .210 4, 40 .59 .338 4, 44 .26 .451

NOTE.—P-values reflect one-tailed tests of significance.

scores, but we report pre-post standard
scores in Table 2 to enable comparison to
other studies. Similarly, the PPVT analyses
were performed using GSV scores and the
CTOPP analyses were conducted on raw
scores, but we report pre-post standard
score descriptive statistics for ease of inter-
pretation. Oral Reading Fluency analyses
were performed and results reported using
raw scores reflecting the number of words
read correctly per minute. For this pilot
study, we were interested in estimating the
effects of the intervention on students’
growth over the 4-week period; we calcu-
lated Cohen’s d effect sizes comparing the
treatment and comparison groups on their
pre-post difference scores for each variable.
Effect sizes ranged from small (on growth
in sound matching, PPVT, and the letter-
sound CBM) to large (on growth in blend-
ing words and all measures of word read-
ing) favoring the treatment group. The
effect on growth in oral comprehension
was moderate. Only one effect size favored
the comparison group, a small effect on
oral reading fluency.
Standardized Measures
First we report the results for standard-
ized measures, followed by the results for
the researcher-created CBMs. Results for
the standardized measures are presented in
Table 3.
Preliminary data investigations in-
cluded analyses of pretest equivalence and
examination of outliers, potential depar-
tures from normality, and homogeneity of
variance. Simple ANOVA indicated no sig-
nificant between-group differences on pre-
test scores on any variable; however, we
included pretest in our analyses because of
its significant contribution to outcomes on
all variables. We also included teacher as a
fixed effect in our models to account for the
effects of individual teachers beyond those
of treatment-group assignment. As our hy-
pothesis was unidirectional and the inter-
vention was not expected to result in wors-
ening performance, we conducted one-
tailed tests of significance. Moreover, in a
pilot test, for which the goal is not evaluat-
ing the efficacy of an intervention but de-
termining whether a randomized trial is
warranted, we judged that type II error was
more serious than type I error.
Several of the distributions were found
to violate the assumption of homogeneity
of variance and some were also found to
depart significantly from the normal distri-
bution. The problem of heterogeneous vari-
ances in analysis of variance (ANOVA) can
be handled in one of several ways. One way

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434
is to use a nonparametric ANOVA such as
the Kruskal-Wallis test, but this limits one to
simple analyses. Since in this case we needed
to control for pretest levels on the measures
and teacher effects, the nonparametric ap-
proach was not appropriate. An alternative
method involves using a mixed-models anal-
ysis to model the variance separately. Using
this model results in a log-likelihood statistic
that can then be compared to the log likeli-
hood for a model assuming equal variances.
Twice the difference in the log likelihoods is
approximately distributed as chi-square and
can be used to test the homogeneity assump-
tion as well. This method allows us to include
other terms in the model, such as pretests
and teacher effects, and thereby provides a
reasonable solution to the case of heteroge-
neous variance across groups in our data.
Thus, for each outcome we ran an initial
model that included the pretest assessment,
treatment-group assignment, and teacher
(nested within group) as predictors of the
posttest allowing for the variances to be dif-
ferent across groups. A second model was
then run that kept all the predictors in the
model but restricted the variance to be held
constant across groups. The log-likelihood
differences were then tested to see which
model was more appropriate for the data.
The residuals for each model were also ob-
tained and tested for normality, as this is the
actual assumption for such models.
For WJ III letter-word identification there
was no indication of heterogeneous variances
or nonnormality. Controlling for the pretest
and teachers nested within group, the result
for treatment group was significant (F(1,
46) ⫽ 5.71, p ⫽ .0106, one-tailed). The effect
size for letter-word identification difference
scores was large (d ⫽ .91).
For WJ III oral comprehension, the data
indicated that the group variances were dif-
ferent (␹2(1) ⫽ 18.1, p ⬍ .01). Regardless, the
group differences were also significant (F(1,
46) ⫽ 3.25, p ⫽ .039, one tailed). Normality
was borderline as one test (Shapiro-Wilks)
was significant ( p ⫽ .043), but the other three
(i.e., Kolmogorov-Smirnov, p ⬎ .15; Cramer-
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THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL
Von Mises, p ⫽ .2289; Anderson-Darling, p ⬎
.15) were not. However, two outliers were
evident in the comparison group (precisely
the same as evident in the PPVT distribu-
tion). From pretest to posttest, these two stu-
dents lost 29 and 36 standard score points,
indicating likely testing error. If these stu-
dents’ data are eliminated, the results do not
change appreciably, except that there is no
longer any hint of nonnormality; there are
still differences in variances and the group
effect is significant (F(1, 44) ⫽ 2.83, p ⫽ .0498,
one-tailed). The teacher effect was not signif-
icant for this variable, but the pretest effect
was. After the outliers were dropped, the ef-
fect size for the difference score on this vari-
able was in the medium range (d ⫽ .45).
For CTOPP analyses, we utilized raw
scores since some students scored too low at
pretest to be assigned standard scores. For
CTOPP sound matching, there was no indi-
cation of heterogeneous variances or of non-
normality in the data. The model, however,
did not show any group or teacher effects,
only that of the pretest. For CTOPP blending
words, there was no indication of heteroge-
neous variances nor of nonnormality in the
residuals, but the group effect was significant
(F(1, 46) ⫽ 3.54, p ⫽ .033, one-tailed) over and
above the effect of the pretest and that of
teacher nested within group. The effect size
for the difference score in blending words
was in the large range (d ⫽ .76).
For TPRI oral reading fluency, the vari-
ances again appeared to be different
(␹2(1) ⫽ 6.90, p ⬍ .01) and the residual dis-
tribution was determined to be nonnormal
on all tests (Shapiro-Wilks, p ⫽ .0094). The
data did not fit the pattern that might have
allowed a generalized model, so we ap-
plied a square-root transformation, which
removed the significant nonnormality.
However, this model did not demonstrate
any significant group effects.
For the PPVT-4 GSV score, there was a
significant difference in the models assum-
ing equal versus unequal variances (␹2(1) ⫽
18.1, p ⬍ .01). In addition, the residuals for
this model showed a marked skewness
JUNE 2010

TABLE 4. Posttest Effects for Pretest Errors, Intervention Group, and Teacher on Curriculum-Based Measures
High-Frequency-
Letter-Sound CBM Words CBM
Source df F p df F p
Pretest 1, 41 82.11 ⬍.0001 1, 41 149.18 ⬍.0001
Group 1, 41 1.74 .097 1, 41 2.98 .046
Teacher 4, 41 2.36 .035 4, 41 1.46 .116
NOTE.—P-values reflect one-tailed tests of significance.
which was reflected in a significant lack of
normality detected by the Shapiro-Wilks
test ( p ⬍ .0001). However, the results were
primarily due to two cases, both in the
comparison group, who were substantially
different at posttest compared to pre, but in
the opposite from the expected direction.
These were the same two cases with outli-
ers in the WJ III oral comprehension distri-
bution. One showed a PPVT standard score
decline of 57 points over 4 weeks, while the
other lost 21 standard score points. Drop-
ping these two cases from the analysis re-
moved the significant nonnormality from
the residual distribution; however, this did
not affect the results, which showed that
the pretest GSV score was related to post-
test but neither teacher effects nor group
effects were statistically significant.
Curriculum-Based Measures
Since the CBMs were untimed and con-
sisted of items normally taught in kinder-
garten and first grade, they had the poten-
tial for ceiling effects, which were evident
in the distributions. Therefore, using the
GLIMMIX procedure in SAS, we analyzed
probabilities of the error frequencies on
each measure based on a Poisson distribu-
tion. Again, we accounted for pretest and
teacher effects in evaluating between-
group effects. Table 4 presents the results.
Although the treatment group made
larger mean gains than the comparison
group on all CBMs, significant between-
group differences were detected in only
one of the four measures after accounting
for teacher and pretest: high-frequency
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SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 435
Decodable-Words
CBM Vocabulary CBM
df F p df F p
1, 41 50.08 ⬍.0001 1, 41 102.49 ⬍.0001
1, 41 1.85 .090 1, 41 .44 .256
4, 41 1.83 .071 4, 41 .38 .412
words (F(1, 41) ⫽ 2.98, p ⫽ .046, one-tailed).
The effects of pretest were significant for all
variables, and effects for teacher were sig-
nificant for letter-sounds. No effects be-
yond those of pretest were evident for de-
codable words or vocabulary.
Discussion
The purpose of this pilot study was to exam-
ine the potential efficacy of a kindergarten
summer school reading intervention for
students attending high-poverty schools in
order to determine whether further ex-
perimental research of the intervention
approach was warranted. Through a quasi-
experimental design, outcomes in phonemic
awareness, word reading, text reading flu-
ency, listening comprehension, and vocabu-
lary were investigated to determine if a brief,
intensive summer school reading program
could be associated with positive effects on
student outcomes. Results indicated that stu-
dents who attended the intensive summer
reading program made significantly better
gains on measures of word reading and lis-
tening comprehension when compared to
students who received typical summer
school instruction, although word reading
outcomes could also be attributed in part to
differences between teachers. Results related
to phonological awareness were mixed, and
there were no significant between-group dif-
ferences detected in oral reading fluency or
vocabulary. These findings are encouraging,
especially considering that past research sug-
gests that the gap in academic performance
between students who come from low-
income and higher-income backgrounds
436
tends to widen during the summer months
(Borman et al., 2005; Cooper et al., 1996).
The most robust effect size was associ-
ated with growth in word reading as mea-
sured by the WJ III. Treatment-group stu-
dents also performed significantly better
than comparison-group students in high-
frequency word recognition. Although stu-
dents in the treatment classrooms outper-
formed comparison students in reading
decodable words, this difference was not
statistically significant after accounting for
teacher-level effects. These results are en-
couraging, as learning to read words accu-
rately and fluently is an essential goal of
early reading instruction. Although some
children in the treatment classrooms re-
mained at risk for reading failure at the end
of summer school, the instruction they re-
ceived in phonics and word recognition
may have created a foundation to support
their progress in decoding in first grade.
Students’ growth in listening comprehen-
sion in this study is also noteworthy. The
relationship between listening and reading
comprehension is strong; students’ ability to
comprehend written text is similar to their
comprehension of the text when it is spoken
(Bell & Perfetti, 1994; Gernsbacher, Varner,
& Faust, 1990). This relationship has been
confirmed by studies that demonstrate a sig-
nificant predictive relationship between lis-
tening comprehension and reading compre-
hension (Aarnoutse, van den Bous, & Brand-
Gruwel, 1998; Garner & Bochna, 2004; Nation
& Snowling, 2004). Moreover, research indi-
cates that listening comprehension may be a
precursor target skill that could be useful
for identifying students at risk for reading-
comprehension failure (Carlisle & Felbinger,
1991; Catts & Hogan, 2003; Duke, Pressley, &
Hilden, 2004). The approach to comprehen-
sion instruction implemented in the current
study was also found to be efficacious in a
previous study of listening comprehension
instruction delivered to English language
learners in kindergarten (Solari & Gerber,
2008) and appears to merit further study.
The findings of this study in terms of
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THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL
word reading and listening comprehension
development are aligned with those of
Schacter and Jo (2005), who found positive
effects for a summer school program de-
livered to children in kindergarten and first
grade when instruction addressed both
word- and text-level reading skills. For
young students at risk for reading difficulties,
particularly those from low-income back-
grounds who possibly have more limited op-
portunities to build wide background knowl-
edge, it may be particularly important to
provide instruction in listening comprehen-
sion in addition to word-level reading in-
struction. More research directly examining
this question is warranted.
In the area of phonemic awareness, the
treatment group had significantly better
outcomes in phoneme blending, but not in
sound matching. Nonetheless, the positive
outcome for phoneme blending may be im-
portant. The ability to segment words into
smaller parts (i.e., onsets and rimes, pho-
nemes) and blend word parts together to
form words has been shown to be strongly
related to early reading development (e.g.,
Stahl & Murray, 1994), and deficits in this
domain have been reliably associated with
reading difficulties and disabilities (e.g.,
Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007; Vel-
lutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon,
2004). Although the treatment group had
more standard score growth than the com-
parison group on sound matching, the dif-
ference was not statistically significant. Ob-
servations in comparison classrooms
indicated that these students practiced re-
citing and singing rhyming poems and
songs, and direct instruction in phonologi-
cal awareness was observed in one class-
room. This instruction may have been suf-
ficient to promote growth in identifying
initial sounds in words.
As beginning readers learn to recognize
many words orally at sight and quickly de-
code unknown words, their reading becomes
more fluent (Ehri, 2005). Although between-
group differences in oral reading fluency
were not statistically significant, comparison-
JUNE 2010

group students made greater gains than
treatment-group students on this variable.
Future implementation of the intervention
may include more practice reading con-
nected text to develop the automaticity asso-
ciated with fluent reading (Chard, Vaughn, &
Tyler, 2002).
There is evidence that vocabulary devel-
opment can be promoted in young children
when teachers use an interactional read-
aloud style and extended book discussion to
decontextualize language (e.g., Dickinson &
Smith, 1993), and other research has demon-
strated significant effects for approaches to
vocabulary instruction similar to the one im-
plemented in the current study (e.g., Elley,
1989; Wasik & Bond, 2001). However, stu-
dents who attended the treatment classrooms
did not differ significantly from comparison-
group students on the PPVT-4 or on the
vocabulary CBM. This may be due to the
short duration of summer school; however,
even with a short-term intervention, one
would expect some differential movement of
treatment-group students on the CBM of vo-
cabulary words that were specifically taught
in the program. The relatively high perfor-
mance of both groups at pretest on the
vocabulary CBM suggests that the lack of
differences could be due to the fact that
many children in both groups already
knew the meanings of the instructed
words. An alternative explanation is that
the research curriculum introduced words
at too quick a pace (three new words per
day) and that students were unable to use
the words to the extent necessary to de-
velop an understanding of them and re-
member their meanings. Both possibilities
should be considered prior to beginning an
efficacy study of this intervention.
Limitations of the Pilot Study
The results of this pilot study are not
necessarily generalizable to other student
populations. The study was limited by its
small sample size. In particular, the fact
that only three teachers provided instruc-
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SUMMER SCHOOL READING PILOT 437
tion in each condition limited our ability to
distinguish between the effects of the inter-
vention and the effects of assignment to
particular teachers. Also related to the
small sample size is our high attrition rate;
many of the students we had pretested and
assigned to the treatment or comparison
conditions at the end of the regular school
year did not attend summer school and
were subsequently unavailable for assess-
ment, while several others left before the
end of the summer school term and thus
lacked posttest data. Equally important, the
randomization of students to classrooms
was compromised by the schools. These
factors may have biased our results, al-
though schools’ apparently nonrandom
placement of newly arriving students into
classrooms probably resulted in a more
challenging test of the intervention since
students placed in treatment classrooms
were more impaired than those placed in
comparison classrooms. However, the vio-
lation of randomization limits the general-
izability of our results. Other limitations
related to study implementation are (a) the
experimental condition incorporated small-
group instruction provided by paraprofes-
sionals, while paraprofessionals were not
available to the comparison-group teach-
ers, and (b) interrater reliability for class-
room observations was not established
since only one person observed each inter-
vention component (i.e., one person ob-
served basic reading instruction, another
observed comprehension, and a third ob-
served vocabulary) and only one person
observed in the comparison classrooms.
Implications for Research and Practice
In spite of these limitations, this pilot
study demonstrates that larger-scale exper-
imental research of similar interventions is
warranted. Summer school provides edu-
cators with an important opportunity to
provide instruction that may have positive
effects on reading outcomes for students
from low-income families. As it is currently
438
implemented, summer school instruction
offered to primary-grade students often
consists of low-intensity activities that are
not guided by clear instructional objectives.
Often, summer school programs fail to uti-
lize research-based curricular programs
(Heyns, 1987; Roderick et al., 1999). Requir-
ing kindergarten and first-grade students
who are at risk for reading difficulties to
attend summer school and using that time
to provide instruction similar to that pro-
vided in this study may help narrow the
persistent gap in reading outcomes be-
tween children from low- and higher-
income backgrounds. This question merits
further empirical study.
Note
Correspondence concerning this article
should be addressed to Carolyn Denton, Chil-
dren’s Learning Institute, 7000 Fannin St., UCT
2443, Houston, TX 77030. E-mail: Carolyn.
A.Denton@uth.tmc.edu.
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