The Summer Learning of Exceptional Students

The summer activities and summer learning of exceptional students--students who have an individualized education plan or who are English-language learners--are potentially important yet understudied. We analyze nationally representative survey data to fill this gap. Exceptional students are significantly less likely than their mainstream counterparts to participate in organized summer activities and summer day care but are more likely to attend summer school and to practice math with a parent. Exceptional learners make significantly greater reading gains during the summer vacation than their mainstream counterparts; however, this is true only for middle- and high-income exceptional learners. Moreover, the well-documented summer learning loss of low-income students in reading appears to be entirely driven by lower summer learning rates of low-income exceptional learners. There are no such differences in math achievement.