Replicating the Effects of a Scaled-Up, Teacher-Scaffolded Voluntary Summer Reading Program

READS (Reading Enhances Achievement During Summer) has been implemented in North Carolina schools for the past several years as part of an Investing in Innovation (i3) validation grant that began in fall 2010. This paper focuses on the Year 3 study and compares the Year 3 results to the Year 1 and Year 2 results, and the results of earlier studies. The purpose of the Year 3 study was to test the effectiveness of READS-PIF (Reads with Parent Involvement and Follow-up) in a larger sample of school districts and schools. Researchers addressed three main research questions: (1) What was the overall impact of READS-PIF on students' reading comprehension?; (2) Was the impact of READS-PIF greater in high poverty schools than in moderate poverty schools?; and (3) Was the impact of READS-PIF greater for students receiving free or reduced price lunch (FRL)? This study took place in 59 elementary schools from 7 school districts in North Carolina. Of the 59 schools, 44 were high-poverty schools, and 15 were moderate-poverty schools. The final analytic sample included 5,284 students (2,798 2nd graders, and 2,486 3rd graders). Nearly 80% of the students in the study were eligible for FRL. On the spring pretest, students scored somewhat below national norms on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) reading comprehension test. The sample mean normal-curve equivalent score was 46. Intervention methods included: (1) end-of-year lessons; (2) family nights; (3) tri-folds; (4) follow-up calls; and (5) book matching and summer book distribution. Within each grade and school, students were randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition and pre- and post-tested on a standardized reading comprehension test, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). OLS regression was used to estimate the main effect of the treatment condition, both overall and separately by grade. To address the question of whether school poverty moderated the treatment effect, researchers included a cross-level interaction involving the student-level treatment effect and school poverty. The results suggest that the scaffolded summer reading program may be effective for third grade girls but not third grade boys. Unlike the Year 1 and Year 2 studies, the results of this study do not indicate that treatment effects are moderated by poverty measured at the school level or individual student level. Tables are appended.