6 keys to building a high-impact summer reading program

Key points:

A successful summer program can’t focus solely on assessment scores
5 ways to make reading click for teens
Why schools and public libraries must unite–in summer and all year long
For more news on summer literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

In 2023, Bob Bolduc, the founder of Hope for Youth and Families, identified a gap in our student’s reading success here in Springfield, Massachusetts. He sought to identify a solution that would specifically support middle school students reading below grade level, and in 2024 partnered with Storyshares and HILL for Literacy to create an intensive, four-week summer literacy program.

That summer, students who completed the program showed twice as much growth in their MAP scores as their peers had shown during the entire school year. The next summer, students showed the same impressive growth. Here are the essential lessons that school districts can learn from our experience of creating a summer literacy program that makes an enormous difference in the lives of students and families.

Connecting with families

Our program typically includes between 120 and 150 students recruited from schools throughout our community. Most of our families speak two languages, so we have a Spanish speaker on staff to help us cross the language barrier. We first connect with families by holding open houses and online meet-and-greets multiple times throughout the year. We let families know that our program supports academics and gives students a safe place to be–and they can enroll at no cost. This makes a big difference in Springfield, which is one of the poorest cities in the state.

Small groups working at a ‘perky pace’

Our program is modeled on high-intensity tutoring delivered in a small-group class setting. In each classroom, we have about 15 students with two to three adults who are trained in all of the materials, pedagogy, and skills. We aim for a 5:1 student to teacher ratio, and we achieve this by combining licensed educators with interns who are interested in youth development and literacy education.

The Literacy Intervention for Teens (LIFT) curriculum we use is built specifically to provide high intensity and scaffolded instruction, while also keeping what Dr. Anita Archer calls “perky pace.” This means teachers may spend 20 minutes on direct instruction, then incorporate practice and choice after that. Choice is key: Students in this program tend to have low confidence because they’ve repeatedly been told that they’re not good at reading, and teachers build their confidence both by offering them materials that they can read and want to read.

Age-appropriate printed materials

Our program serves students in grades 4 to 8, and over the years we have built a library of ebooks and printed books that are content-appropriate for that wide range of ages. We don’t ask our older struggling readers to read books about butterflies and The Cat in the Hat. Instead, we offer them stories about kids like them who are going through the dilemmas of being a pre-teen or a teen, and that helps them establish a connection with the reading materials. We print all our materials for our students who prefer physical books over ebooks, and this year for the first time, we are using paper workbooks to show students’ progress. Using workbooks also allows students to stay organized and to look back and see the results of the work they’ve done.

Strategic assessments

In addition to the workbooks, we also track students’ growth with traditional assessments. In the past, we have used CORE and DIBELS to assess students’ reading speed, fluency, and comprehension. Because our program is short, we try to do the initial assessment on the first day of programming and the final assessment as close to the end of the last week as possible.

Pairing reading with creative writing

A successful summer program can’t focus solely on assessment scores. It has to be fun, too. Our students relish the opportunity to be creative, so our program pairs reading with creative writing. Many of our students look forward to creative writing because they can write whatever they want in response to a teacher’s prompt. Writing is engaging because it’s not graded and it allows them to put into practice what they’re learning about reading. Students’ creative writing may not be finished by the end of class, or it may be a little wandering, but they’re proud of it, and they’re so excited for that opportunity. I’ve often had students run up to me and say, “Look what I wrote!” This shows them that reading can lead to powerful personal connections.

Providing local role models

Many of our interns are from the area. Our students see themselves in these near peers, and they believe that “if you can do this, I can do it too.” It’s often easier to relate to somebody who’s close to your age, so our interns become role models for our students making those near-peer connections and fostering a positive culture in the classroom.

For schools and districts considering launching a summer literacy program, I can say from experience that it takes hard work and organization, but it’s worth every second you put in. When middle schoolers can read proficiently, they have so many more options for the next chapter of their lives. I remember one student who was in the program the first summer. He was going into 9th grade and was reading very close to grade level, but he wasn’t quite there. We worked extensively on his reading comprehension and stamina. When I visited his school in the fall, he said to me, “I want you to know I’m out of remedial English. And because of that, I got to choose an elective, and I’m in Junior ROTC. I love it! I never thought I’d be able to do something like that.”