In Montgomery County, summer offerings for Title I students have been increasing over the past several years. This year 1,000 more students — for a total of 6,000 — are enrolled in the Extended Learning Opportunities program, which focuses on reviewing the prior year’s material and then readying pupils for the coming year.

Duncan Chaplin, one of the researchers, said his analyses were based on a specific program called Building Educated Leaders for Life, but the overall premise of summer school’s benefits applies across the board.

“This is the best evidence we have right now about summer enrichment and low-income students,” he said.

Among the more notable conclusions Chaplin drew was that summer schooling showed positive effects on the degree to which parents encouraged children to read. The students’ reading test scores also rose slightly following the summer programs.

The major impact of the study, he said, is to spur parents to sign up their children for summertime schooling and, hopefully, to get school districts to focus more attention on summer learning.

Chaplin noted his research did not compare the level of success between after-school programs and summer school programs for low-income students, an area he will be studying in coming months.

Examiner