A Pilot Study of a Kindergarten Summer School Reading Program in High-Poverty Urban Schools

This pilot study examined an implementation of a kindergarten summer school reading program in 4 high-poverty urban schools. The program targeted both basic reading skills and oral language development. Students were randomly assigned to a treatment group (n= 25) or a typical practice comparison gro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Elementary school journal 2010-06, Vol.110 (4), p.423-439
Main Authors: Denton, Carolyn A., Solari, Emily J., Ciancio, Dennis J., Hecht, Steven A., Swank, Paul R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Basic Skills
Classroom observations
Direct instruction
Intervention
Kindergarten
Kindergarten education
Kindergarten students
Language Acquisition
Language comprehension
Listening Comprehension
Oral Language
Phonemic Awareness
Posttests
Poverty
Pretests
Program Effectiveness
Program Implementation
Quasiexperimental Design
Reading comprehension
Reading Fluency
Reading instruction
Reading Programs
Reading Skills
Story Reading
Summer Programs
Summer school
Summer schools
Urban Schools
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Development
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This pilot study examined an implementation of a kindergarten summer school reading program in 4 high-poverty urban schools. The program targeted both basic reading skills and oral language development. Students were randomly assigned to a treatment group (n= 25) or a typical practice comparison group (n= 28) within each school; however, randomization was compromised due to school circumstances, resulting in a quasi-experimental design. Instruction was delivered by the schools' regular teachers during 20 full-day summer school sessions. Each day treatment group students received large-group listening comprehension and vocabulary lessons anchored in storybook reading, along with small-group lessons focused on basic reading skills and listening comprehension. The intervention was associated with improved outcomes for treatment group students in word reading and listening comprehension with mixed results for phonemic awareness and no significant between-group differences in reading fluency or vocabulary. Such an approach is potentially efficacious, suggesting the need for further research.
ISSN:0013-5984
1554-8279
DOI:10.1086/651190