Study Captures What's Known About Summer Learning

How to Provide Quality Opportunities for Young People in the Summer Months

This document summarizes what has been learned to date about planning and implementing K-12 summer programs and offers insights for practitioners, policymakers, and funders.

Extensive research has shown that summer provides young people with a range of support including mentoring, engaging activities, nutritious meals, and more. And quality summer learning programs continue to emerge as a key strategy to support students academically, whether to recover lost learning, stay on track throughout the summer, or to get ahead.

A new Wallace-funded publication from RAND and two of the nation's leading researchers on summer learning, How to Provide Quality Opportunities for Young People in the Summer Months, synthesizes the existing body of research documenting how summer learning programs are designed and implemented.

It provides an overview of the importance of summer learning, highlighting: the variety of programming that exists; how summer programs benefit students; what characteristics make programs most effective; and how programs can be scaled and sustained.

And what does the research tell us about summer learning? Authors found that:

All children and youth can benefit from participating in summer programs to learn, make new friends, develop a new hobby, exercise, eat well, and receive mentoring from trusted adults.
Many types of summer programs can be effective in promoting positive outcomes and developing skills and interests, including academic programs, employment programs, and programs addressing specific health, behavioral, or learning needs.
High-quality programs require advance planning and attention to program content, duration, staff expertise, and youth attendance.

Authors also outline a set of recommendations for districts, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and funders on how to strengthen summer learning programming across the country.

Learn more here.