Attend Summer School Research Articles

Free books to close the reading achievement gap

Richard Allington reviews the nature of the reading achievement gap between students from low-income and high-income families, concluding that the limited access to children’s books experienced by children from low-income families lies at the base of the problem. The fact that children from low-income families lose reading achievement every summer largely explains summer reading loss. Allington and his colleagues completed two large-scale studies assessing the impact of giving free books of their choice to students from low-income families for them to read over the summer. After three years of summer books, the children gained almost a year in reading achievement compared to the students who did not receive books. The summer books project cost far less than a summer school program and produced greater achievement gains than having low-income children attend summer school programs.

The Research of Integrated Circuit Design Technology

This article discusses the fundamentals of analogue integrated circuit design and construction, as well as the operation and some basic models of MOS transistors. It also provides a thorough introduction to the CMOS, PMOS, and NMOS structures, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each. Additionally, operational and differential amplifiers are introduced, along with some examples of their uses. While attending summer school, I also learned how to simulate the SPEICE model using the computer program CoolSPICE. The SPEICE model is a literal description of a circuit component that theoretically predicts the behavior of that component under various conditions. The article ends with forecasts and suggestions regarding the future evolution of analog circuits and their potential effects on society.

A Creative Strengths-Based Group Counseling Intervention for African American Boys

ABSTRACT The primary purpose of this article is to provide an overview of a strengths-based group counseling intervention based on the Achieving Success Everyday Group Model which was implemented with African American third-grade boys who needed to attend summer school in order to transition successfully to fourth grade. The intervention resulted from the partnership between a counselor education faculty member and a small charter school’s school-counseling supervisor in the northeast U.S. The group leaders’ and participants’ reported experiences indicating reinforced basic reading and writing skills among students. Finally, based on the feedback implications for training, practice, and research are provided.

Implementing and evaluating a course in professional ethics for an undergraduate pharmacy curriculum: A feasibility study

BackgroundPharmacy practice today mandates “patient-centered care”, thereby assigning higher levels of professional responsibility for pharmacists leading to ethical challenges. These challenges often involve ethical principles, institutional, personal, or other constraints that can pull practitioners in incompatible opposite directions, creating “ethical dilemmas” in many circumstances. Pharmacists are expected to handle challenges competently and in the best interest of patients. Literature underlines the positive impact of educational interventions focusing on ethical awareness and competence, and that “gaps” existed in pharmacy training/curricula for Jordanian pharmacists. The objective of this study was to develop, implement, and evaluate the utility of a tailored ethics education component in the pharmacy curriculum for students enrolled at a well-ranked Jordanian university. Educational activity and settingFifth-year pharmacy students attending summer school at a university in Jordan from July to September 2020 were invited to participate in an educational intervention (suite of didactic online lectures and skills-based workshops). This study was delivered in four parts, with a pretest administered immediately before and a posttest survey immediately after the educational intervention, the educational intervention (three phases), and focus-group discussions to elicit students' feedback. FindingsFindings indicated enhanced levels of confidence in students' decision-making. The development of students' moral reasoning and decision-making skills were also observed to be improved. SummaryThis study highlighted the importance of the implementation of an ethics course in pharmacy undergraduate curricula. It emphasized the positive impact this course made on the students' learning experiences and provided a strong environment for discussion and group learning.

Parental Race/Ethnicity and Children's Summer Activities: A Critical Race Approach.

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (N = 3,748), we examine how children's summer activities vary across White, Black, Latino, and Asian American families, net of socioeconomic and other characteristics. Overall, a majority of children play outside and use screen media daily, do learning activities three days or more per week, and take family trips. Attending summer school or camps is less common. As predicted from critical race perspectives, Black parents have children spend more time attending camps than other parents. Compared with White parents, Black and Asian parents have their children engaged in academic activities more and play outside less; Latino parents do learning activities with their children less, but are more likely to have them tutored. All the three non-White groups allow children to spend more time using screen media. More quantitative research using critical race perspectives in conceptualizing racial/ethnic differences in parenting is warranted.

Art detectives: young children’s behaviour in finding and interpreting art elements within picture books

ABSTRACT Picture book illustrations can provide the opportunity for critical examination of a work of art. There is a growing body of research focusing on how we can respond creatively to the illustrations in picture books as art objects. This study aimed to reveal how children interpret art elements based on various artistic techniques within picture books and how children use these elements when interpreting their own stories. In line with this aim, three picture books for preschool children were examined together along with a study group of four children attending summer school in a private kindergarten in the province of Ankara, Turkey. The research observations were recorded via photographs, audio-video recordings, and written notes. Qualitative data related to the children’s interpretations of art elements in the picture book illustrations were analysed descriptively. The results showed that the children paid closest attention to the elements of colour and shape within picture books, and that these art elements were also those that they placed the strongest emphasis on in their own work.

Summer School, School Disengagement, and Substance Use During Adolescence

Youth who fall behind academically are at increased risk for school disengagement, school dropout, and substance use. Summer school is an opportunity for youth to complete needed coursework yet has not been utilized as a venue for substance use prevention. To date, little is known about the rates of summer school attendance among adolescents or the relationship between summer school attendance, school disengagement, and substance use. The purpose of this study is to assess the characteristics of summer school attendance over the past 20 years and to examine the associations between summer school attendance, indicators of school disengagement, and recent substance use among eighth-grade students. Data from the Monitoring the Future cross-sectional study of eighth-grade students (1997-2016; n=111,033) was used to examine the association between summer school attendance and recent substance use (e.g., past 2-week/30-day marijuana use). Bivariate associations controlling for sociodemographics and school disengagement (e.g., truancy) were assessed. Analyses were completed in 2018. School disengagement and substance use were associated with summer school attendance; however, when controlling for indicators of school disengagement, summer school attendance was not associated with substance use. Interaction effect models found that summer school attendance weakened the association between indicators of school disengagement and substance use. These findings suggest that students with a high propensity to use substances do attend summer school. Summer school may be a venue to deliver information on the risk of alcohol or other drugs to a population of at-risk students.

Defining Summer Gain Among Elementary Students With or at Risk for Reading Disabilities

Summer reading programs are a form of extended school year services for students in special education. However, previous studies have not reported including high percentages of participants in special education, nor have studies sufficiently controlled for selection bias. This study combined propensity score weighting with partially clustered models to examine the effects of a summer reading program on the growth in reading skills of K–4 students, roughly 50% to 75% of whom were in special education. Results suggest that students in most grades improved on some but not all skills. However, fewer improvements were apparent when participating students were compared with peers via propensity score analyses. In addition, Grade 3 students in the control group outperformed their peers who attended summer school.

Students attend summer school on green chemistry

The 2017 ACS Summer School on Green Chemistry & Sustainable Energy took place at the Colorado School of Mines on June 20–27. The annual program, supported and financed by ACS, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute, and the ACS Petroleum Research Fund, is open to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from institutions in the Americas. This year’s class of 53 students represented institutions in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, the U.S., and Uruguay. The schedule began with a barbecue and concluded with a banquet. Instructors from institutions in Canada and the U.S. gave presentations on the principles and practice of green chemistry, including information on biomass, fossil fuels, fuel cells, green chemistry education, ionic liquids, nanotechnology, research, solvents, synthesis, and toxicology. Additionally, instructors gave presentations on careers, entrepreneurship, research grant proposal writing, and ACS resources for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Students learned about ea...

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.

Childhood Fish Consumption and Learning and Behavioral Disorders.

Fish is a major source of nutrients critical for brain development during early life. The importance of childhood fish consumption is supported by several studies reporting associations of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) supplementation with better behavior and school performance. However, fish may have a different effect than n-3 PUFA alone due to the neurotoxic effects of methylmercury, a frequent contaminant. We investigated associations of childhood fish consumption with learning and behavioral disorders in birth cohort study of the neurotoxic effects of early life exposure to solvent-contaminated drinking water. Childhood (age 7–12 years) fish consumption and learning and behavioral problems were reported in self-administered questionnaires (age 23–41 at questionnaire completion). Fish consumption was not meaningfully associated with repeating a grade, tutoring, attending summer school, special class placement, or low educational attainment. However, participants who ate fish several times a week had an elevated odds of Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (odds ratio: 5.2; 95% confidence interval: 1.5–18) compared to participants who did not eat fish. While these findings generally support the safety of the observed level of fish consumption, the absence of a beneficial effect may be attributed to insufficient fish intake or the choice of relatively low n-3 PUFA fish.

Students attend summer school for green chemistry

Students attend summer school for green chemistry

“STEMming” the Swell of Absenteeism in the Middle Years: Impacts of an Urban District Summer Robotics Program

This article reports findings from a quasi-experimental study of the impact of a summer robotics program for urban middle-grade students. The study focuses on student engagement, measured by school attendance rate the year following the program. Program students, who were nearly all low-income minority students, were matched to comparison students who did not attend summer school. After establishing baseline equivalence in attendance between the groups, the study found a statistically and educationally significant program effect on school attendance the following year, suggesting that high-interest hands-on educational activities can help maintain student engagement in school.

The Effects of New York City's Test-Based Promotion Policy

School systems across the nation have recently adopted, or are reportedly considering policies that require students to reach some minimal benchmark on standardized tests in order to be promoted to the next grade. We use a regression discontinuity design to study the effects of New York City’s test-based promotion policy on multiple outcomes up to five years after treatment. Treated students were retained and required to attend summer school prior to the retained year. We find evidence that exposure to the treatment had a statistically significant and substantial positive effect on student math and ELA test scores in the years immediately following the treatment, which dissipate somewhat over time. However, the effect remains statistically significant and substantial several years following treatment. Treated students were absent significantly more days in later grades than were control students. Finally, we find no relationship between the treatment and probability of retention in later grades.

School and cognitive functioning problems in adolescent bariatric surgery candidates

BackgroundPrior studies have reported that students with overweight and obesity have impairments in performance IQ and executive function and worse school functioning in comparison with peers of normal weight. The present study assessed school and cognitive functioning in a sample of adolescents with severe obesity being evaluated for laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding. MethodsEligible candidates for bariatric surgery were referred for psychiatric evaluation, which included a semistructured clinical interview measuring school functioning and the vocabulary and matrix reasoning subtests of the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI). ResultsSelf-reported school problems were common, with 55.5% of adolescents failing a grade or subject, 38.7% attending summer school, and 17.8% failing a citywide examination. A significant relationship was observed between body mass index, estimated WASI IQ (r = −.250; P = .005), and the vocabulary subtest (r = −.241; P = .006), but not matrix reasoning (r = −.126; P = NS). ConclusionEven among a sample of adolescents with severe obesity, increased body mass index was associated with lower WASI IQ and vocabulary subtest scores. Increasing awareness of potential cognitive and school problems in bariatric candidates among teachers, school counselors, and other mental health providers is an important first step to improving academic support and educational systems deficiencies for students with overweight and obesity.

The Medium-Run Effects of Florida’s Test-Based Promotion Policy

We use a regression discontinuity strategy to produce causal estimates for the effect of remediation under Florida’s test-based promotion policy on multiple outcomes for up to five years after the intervention. Students subjected to the policy were retained in the third grade, were required to be assigned to a high-quality teacher during the retained year, and were required to attend summer school. Exposure to these interventions has a statistically significant and substantial positive effect on student achievement in math, reading, and science in the years immediately following the treatment. But the effect of the treatment dissipates over time. Nonetheless, we find that the effect of remediation under the policy on academic achievement is statistically significant and of a meaningful magnitude several years after the student is exposed to the intervention. Though we cannot completely separate the differential effects of the treatments attached to the policy, we provide some evidence that assignment to a higher-quality teacher in the retained year is not the primary driver of the policy’s effect.

Summer school effects in a randomized field trial

This field-based randomized trial examined the effect of assignment to and participation in summer school for two moderately at-risk samples of struggling readers. Application of multiple regression models to difference scores capturing the change in summer reading fluency revealed that kindergarten students randomly assigned to summer school outperformed their control group peers by .60 of a standard deviation in an intent-to-treat analysis. For the first grade sample, the intent-to-treat estimate was over three quarters of a standard deviation. The contrast in performance was greater when the comparison was focused more specifically on the change in literacy between treatment participants (i.e., randomly assigned students who actually attended summer school) and students randomly assigned to the control group and in analyses that explicitly adjusted for non-compliance with treatment assignment. These results support the experiential intuition of school district personnel regarding the benefits of summer school and suggest that targeted summer instruction can be a useful strategy to support student learning over the summer months.

What Is Academic Momentum? And Does It Matter?

The academic momentum perspective suggests that the speed with which undergraduates initially progress in college significantly affects their likelihood of completing a degree, an effect separate from those of high school academic preparation and family socioeconomic status. Growth curve modeling of undergraduate transcript data reveals that the number of credits attempted in the first semester of college sets a trajectory that influences later chances of degree completion. Several techniques addressing selection bias indicate that delay between high school and starting college, and also attempting a low course load in the first semester (part-time attendance), are associated with lower degree completion, while attending summer school after freshman year is associated with significantly better graduation chances. In sum, the central claims of momentum theory are supported.

Coming to Know: One Teacher Widens and Deepens Her Knowledge about Struggling Students

Background As part of their graduate studies, university students seeking a master's degree in language and education enroll in a graduate reading practicum held during the university summer session. In an arrangement with a local public elementary school, practicum participants worked on the school's campus in a classroom setting and with struggling readers. Children were so designated by their classroom performance but more so by their failure to reach a passing score on the statewide achievement test in reading. As a way to offer additional help in reading and boost their achievement level, struggling readers were required to attend summer school. Graduate practicum participants provided some of the necessary instructional help that was offered. This arrangement became the means not only to aid struggling readers but also to enable the graduate students to gain further insights into the teaching of reading. Graduate students read the selected course materials--all related to effective theory and practice as well as classroom assessment theory and measures. The readings and the work of the session called attention to thoughtful literacy (Allington, 2009, p. 116). Informed by the readings, the graduate students had the opportunity to teach reading approximately 90 minutes a day for an entire five-week summer session. Following the daily teaching, the university professors in charge of the practicum and the graduate students gathered together for debriefing sessions. The conversations centered on the reading instruction that was implemented and the children's responses. These daily sessions were a venue for collective reflections and an opportunity for graduate peers to aid each other in further planning of the on-going reading instruction and increasing their knowledge about the teaching of reading. The graduate students also wrote individual reflective journals based on their work with the children and relative to the assigned readings. The daily journal entries further served as an important springboard for discussions during the debriefing sessions. In sum, knowledge gained from the readings, which served to inform the instruction offered to children in combination with the insights of the collective debriefings and the reflective writing, would enable the graduate practicum students to come to know more about teaching reading. Specifically, they would come to know more about teaching struggling readers. Framework for the Study In light of the context described at the outset of this article, one of the goals of the practicum experience was to think about countering what is often the instructional diet provided to struggling readers. As Allington (2009) describes the situation, teachers create instructional environments, even interventions, whereby struggling readers work on reading skills and not on actual reading. According to Allington (2006), teachers need to think about thoughtful literacy (p. 116), whereby students read and discuss with a focus on comprehension that results in higher student achievement. The summer practicum challenged the graduate students to provide the children with reading experiences that would be characterized as thoughtful literacy. To aid in accomplishing the latter, a reading workshop format, with its focus on ample opportunity for actual reading, undergirded the daily instruction for children (Roller, 1996; Serafini, 2001, 2006; Tompkins, 2010). Books with a range of reading levels were made available to children, children self-selected books to read, and personal responses to the readings--written and oral--were encouraged and often shared with peers and graduate students alike. Teacher/student conferences to discuss children's readings were a daily occurrence. Allington's thoughtful literacy thus played out in lesson preparation and in the choice of instructional materials. The complexities of teacher education and published calls for reform in teacher education are well documented (e. …

Withering Tights (review)

Reviewed by: Withering Tights Deborah Stevenson Rennison, Louise . Withering Tights. HarperTeen, 2011. [288p]. ISBN 978-0-06-179931-0 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 6-9. "It's so boring being fourteen-and-a-half," says Tallulah, who's hoping that she can chase away tedium by attending summer school at a performing-arts academy in Yorkshire. She's delighted to make some good girl friends right from the start, but she's still keenly interested in getting further acquainted with members of the male sex, whether it be the handsome if slightly incomprehensible townies or the passel of appealing guys from the nearby boys' school. Mostly, though, she's worried that all her classmates seem to bring some genuine talent to their class assignments, while she just panics and breaks into frenzied weirdness that is very funny indeed, but not intentionally so. British author Rennison is best known for Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (BCCB 5/00) and its successors, and while Tallulah's story doesn't have quite the frenetic and ambitious ebullience familiar to fans of Georgia (who's apparently Tallulah's cousin), readers will recognize the comedic haplessness and the humor of awkwardness taken to dizzying heights. Absurdity is a key point here, and it's richly delivered by Tallulah's exploits such as encountering a crush while she's costumed as a horse, breaking out into fake Irish dance and patter under stress, and spearheading a ballet on wheels called "Sugar Plum Bikey." Aside from the region-appropriate focus on Wuthering Heights (which provides the inspiration for the class' final satiric performance), there are nods to titles ranging from Nicholas Nickleby to Cold Comfort Farm, which veteran literati will enjoy spotting. This will be ideal for readers seeking a high-spirited silly British romp with no demanding depths, and they'll appreciate the glossary of British—and just random—terms that's appended. [End Page 536] Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois