Summer reading turns around summer slide

According to this article in Tennessee Today, "University of Tennessee, Knoxville, faculty members Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen have completed a three-year study showing a significantly higher level of reading achievement in students who received books for summer reading at home...
According to the professors’ research, the summer reading setback is the primary reason for the reading achievement gap between children who have access to reading materials at home and those who do not. Students who do not have books at home miss out on opportunities to read...'What we know is that children who do not read in the summer lose two to three months of reading development while kids who do read tend to gain a month of reading proficiency,' Allington said. 'This creates a three to four month gap every year. Every two or three years the kids who don’t read in the summer fall a year behind the kids who do.'...The researchers’ study found that summer reading is just as effective, if not more so, as summer school. 'We found our intervention was less expensive and less extensive than either providing summer school or engaging in comprehensive school reform,' Allington said. ... 'Spending roughly $40 to $50 a year on free books for each child began to alleviate the achievement gap that occurs in the summer.'” This was a multi-year study, where students in first and second grade were allowed to choose the books they took home.