Reaching Students with Reading Disabilities During the Summer

Abstract

The extended summer break from school brings a renewed opportunity to offer high-quality literacy experiences to vulnerable readers, including children with reading disabilities (RD). Students with RD trail their peers in reading progress during the school year; the summer months present an opportunity to address the gap in reading achievement. Policy makers can support reading achievement during summer vacation empowered by interdisciplinary knowledge spanning cognitive neuroscience and education. The science of brain plasticity emphasizes the requirement of impactful reading experiences, especially for word-level skills, toward building reading brain networks. A review of research on summer programming and current policies culminates in recommendations to capitalize on summer opportunities to advance reading achievement.