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Literacy Advocates Address "Summer Slide"

By Carrie Porter, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 10, 2008 at 3:45 p.m.
Updated July 10, 2008 at 3:45 p.m.

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Summer slides occur in more than just water.

Two-thirds of the learning gap between lower and higher-income students can be attributed to unequal summer learning activities, research shows.

Education activists call this the "summer slide" for students in Denver Public Schools.

Members of Great Education Colorado and Summer Scholars met at Whittier Elementary School to target this issue in honor of Wednesday's national "Summer Learning Day."

Carol Boigon, Denver city councilwoman-at-large, and John Lange, superintendent of Adams 14, spoke at the meeting of the urgency for funding.

In particular, they addressed the pending STEP UP (Summer Term Education Program for Upward Performance) Act. Congress has authorized the act but has not provided the funds for programs such as Summer Scholars.

The non-profit organization provides a six-week summer school and recreation program for over 900 at-risk Colorado children from 20 different elementary schools.

In Classroom 121 of Whittier Elementary School, a Summer Scholars class of first-graders were practicing their reading skills on Wednesday.

Divided into small groups according to skill-level, the students worked together and played games while wearing program T-shirts with the motto, "Where learning is always in season!"

The program's low student-teacher ratio and hands-on approach means that 21 to 36 percent of students achieve grade-level reading by the final week.

"It's not controversial," said Boigon, a councilwoman and long-time literacy supporter. "We know it works and we're not doing it. If this was medicine it would be malpractice."

Comments

  • July 10, 2008

    8:23 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    solar_satellite writes:

    I very much doubt that "two-thirds of the learning gap between lower and higher-income students can be attributed to unequal summer learning activities", but it is crystal clear that such a glib conclusion would be uncritically embraced by the educational establishment. Universal literacy is certainly desirable, but it is a goal which is receding from us. It stands to reason that there would be a substantial disparity between children from households where there are many books and those from households where there are none; this is the strongest such correlation discovered to date, and one which cannot be addressed by any school. The educational establishment has made an priori determination that all students should perform equally well, and it obsessively pursues this quixotic goal because it plays well among voters. This article, like all articles about education in the popular press, perfectly reflects this myopic and unscientific obsession. I believe that education should aim more at fostering excellence among those capable of it (many aren't). Television, the Internet, and cellphones are communication modalities which out-compete books for the attention of both students and adults, they foster the decline of general literacy, and, again, schools can do nothing about them (except in the case of the Internet, where many exacerbate the situation by promoting the notion that students should constantly use computers). Summer literacy programs are probably worthwhile, but we aren't going to cheerlead our way out of this problem.

  • July 10, 2008

    10:30 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    natasha writes:

    Books are pretty cheap at thrift stores and free at the library so the whole income gap thing doesn't really fly here. As far as technology that is also accessible at the library. I guess it's up to the PARENTS, over the summer, to make sure that their kids are keeping up and not just playing video games all day. Speaking of that Don't tell me you can afford a Wii or a PS3 but not books. That's B.S.

  • July 11, 2008

    10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    dfrench writes:

    While I understand that there are resources available to families that are low cost options, I ask you to think a moment about those families. What are their priorities? In most homes, the priority is not reading or engaging with their children. Sad? Yes, most definitely, but it is true. We can continue to ignore it and place the blame on the families or we as a nation can attempt to act on the children's behalf. I don't know when the school became "the family" but it has happened. Continue to ignore it or act on it...you choose.