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REVIEW article

Front. Educ.

Sec. Special Educational Needs

Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1612484

This article is part of the Research TopicEducation to Employment: Toward A Better InclusionView all 3 articles

A Synthesis of the Effects of Summer Interventions on Secondary Students with or At-Risk of Reading Difficulties

Provisionally accepted
Jordan  DilleJordan Dille1*Phil  CapinPhil Capin2Johny  DanielJohny Daniel3Elena  DilleElena Dille1Alice  CahillAlice Cahill1
  • 1University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, United States
  • 2Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
  • 3Durham University, Durham, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Students who are at-risk of academic underachievement demonstrate comparable academic growth to their typically developing peers during the academic school year. However, research has consistently shown that these students experience significant learning loss during the summer months, averaging a decline of three to four months of academic progress and knowledge. While substantial funding has been allocated to support summer instruction, there remains a lack of research specifically examining the impact of summer interventions for struggling readers at the secondary level. This synthesis systematically reviewed the effects of summer interventions with a reading component on the reading outcomes for students with, or at-risk of, reading difficulties in grades 6 -12. Analysis of 13 studies revealed mixed results regarding the effectiveness of such interventions. Notably, teacher-led summer programs tended to be more effective than student-directed, home-based models that provided books without direct instruction. These findings highlight the critical need for more rigorous and targeted research on summer interventions for secondary students with or at-risk of reading difficulties.

Keywords: Summer loss, summer school, Reading difficulties, Interventions, secondary grades

Received: 15 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Dille, Capin, Daniel, Dille and Cahill. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Jordan Dille, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, United States

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