| The poverty achievement gap has sustained itself for over 50 years. Debate and discussion has centered on emergent literacy development to interventions within the school academic year and beyond the academic calendar. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether a school district's summer school can prevent summer reading setback among kindergarten and first grade students. And if it can prevent summer reading setback, can summer school help a student over the emergent literacy delays that impoverished students typically suffer.;In this study, the characteristic factors of kindergarten (n = 259) and first grade (n = 266) students from a suburban elementary district were analyzed. The factors analyzed in this study are: summer school participation, poverty, gender, English Language status and ethnicity.;The results of this study indicate that students who attend summer school and are rising first-grade did not suffer summer reading setback as the students experienced summer reading achievement growth. Rising second-grade students who attended summer school did suffer summer reading setback. In fact, all rising second-grade students in the district suffered summer reading setback. Moreover, rising female first-grade students who attend summer school were significantly helped while rising English language second-grade students who attended summer school suffered reading summer setback at the significant level.;The researcher identified four implications for this study. The first implication is the importance of differentiating assessment so that the results are valid. The second implication that emerged is the importance of expanding and addressing student needs within the district's pre-school program, and if possible increase student access to the program. A third implication is increasing the involvement of parents in summer school. A fourth implication that emerged was differentiating the hours of summer school to better meet the needs of the students. The poverty achievement gap appears before kindergarten. |
