Date of Award
Fall 8-2014
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Dr. Rebecca Panagos
Second Advisor
Dr. Sherrie Wisdom
Third Advisor
Dr. Sheila Ward
Abstract
The achievement gap between African American students and other races was continuously widening. School districts across the country were examining several programs to address the issue. This study attempted to examine the overall benefit of summer school attendance on reading achievement. It evaluated the relationship between summer school attendance and lexile levels of African American students from a low socio-economical area, in grades one through four. Participants for the study were not recruited as secondary data was used for the research. The study site school district’s secondary data from the summer school session of 2012 was analyzed. The data included the spring 2012 and fall 2012 AimsWeb RCBM scores, along with the lexile levels. The study site school district collected lexile level data before and after summer school instruction. The summer school program was a four-week program that focused on math and reading. The program was voluntary and any student in the school district was able to attend. Data from the AimsWeb RCBM Assessment provided two measures for analysis: fluency and lexile level. The central research question was “What effect will summer school attendance have on reading lexile levels for African American Students from a low socio-economic area?” This quantitative study explored whether attendance in summer school contributed to an increase in the reading level, decrease in the reading level, or no effect on the reading level. This study used secondary data from a controlled group of students who did not attend summer school and an intervention group of students who attended summer school during 2012. A stratified random sampling of 60 students from the school’s population of 343 was used to conduct the research. iii The findings of the study concluded that summer school could have an observable positive effect on lexile levels, significant results depended on the grade level examined. The study identified a significant relationship between summer school attendance and fall lexile levels for first grade and significant difference in lexile levels of summer school attendees versus non-attendees for first and fourth grades.
Recommended Citation
Bell, Channie, "Summer School Correlation to Reading Lexile Levels of African American Students in a Low Socio-Economic Area in Grades One through Four" (2014). Dissertations. 402.
https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/dissertations/402
Rights
Copyright 2014