CIS of Durham

For some reason, the national debate on improving educational outcomes has focused on just the 10 months of the school year – even though really good research suggest the other two months of summer are crucial.

A few years back, researchers at Johns Hopkins University completed a longitudinal study of reading scores of students – what they found was eye-opening.  The reading achievement gap between kids from low-income families compared to upper-income families was mostly due to summer reading loss. 

It was apparent to John Hopkins University that:

• 30% of the reading achievement gap is evident on the first day of kindergarten.  Thus, there are well founded arguments that we need to invest in high quality early childhood education and parenting programs. 
• 60% of the reading achievement gap was due to summer reading loss for kids of low income households, whereas kids of middle income households were not experiencing this setback.  Interestingly enough, the children were learning at the same rate during the school year, but when it came to the summer months a real difference was seen and the gap increased every summer after that!

This raises a VERY important question – what can we do for our kids during the summer months?  Well Durham has started its journey.

For the last three summers, CIS of Durham has partnered with Durham Public Schools to offer the READS program, designed by Harvard University.  Conceptually it is really simple.  Durham Public School teachers prepare students with reading comprehension lessons and we, CIS of Durham, assess their reading level and preference (i.e. mystery, non-fiction, humor). Once the summer begins, CIS mails books to students weekly and gauges their interest and reading comprehension with postcards.  Finally, we test the kids at summer-end to see how they did. It’s like “Netflix,” except they get to keep the books!

Over the years we have seen real success with this program! Last year’s results were great – no reading loss.  On average, kids in the READS program returned to school at the same reading level as when they left in June, which is exactly what we aim to achieve! We know we’re doing something right, because research typically shows that most kids tend to fall behind by at least two months during the summer.

Not only is CIS of Durham impacting Durham, we are now spreading research-based programs to the rest of the state in the years to come! Just to gauge the enormity of the project – CIS of Durham barely began its pilot of READS with just 80 children a few years ago. This summer CIS of Durham is in 19 of the lowest performing elementary schools and serving nearly 1,500 rising 4^th grade students.  What tremendous growth!  Thanks to Dr. James Kim of Harvard University for winning a $15 million dollar federal grant, CIS of Durham has become a center-piece for a research experiment to later roll-out to 20 other CIS affiliates in North Carolina. 

We can and need to help improve teaching and schools, but if 60% of the reading achievement gap occurs during the summer, shouldn’t we be investing in more programs like READS?

-Bud Lavery, Executive Director