kids for Summer Learning

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kids for Summer Learning

Last Updated Aug 20, 2008 06:03 PM

Building Effective Programs for kids for Summer Learning

1. Form partnerships with schools.

Local public schools are where the neediest kids spend the rest of the year, and so can be very helpful in identifying and recruiting the children who need summer programs the most. Teachers, tutors, principals and counselors can all make recommendations about which students most need summer help, and can also serve as important links to children's parents, playing an important role in persuading them to have their children participate.

Examples of programs reaching out to schools include the St. Louis Public Library's summer reading club, which reports that one of its most exciting developments is a growing partnership with the public schools in that city. The school district has asked the staff at its 80 summer schools to work closely with the library program, and has even assigned three full-time staff members to work specifically on bringing the summer reading club to its at-risk summer students. The Heads Up tutoring and mentoring program in Washington, DC, molds itself to meet individual schools' needs: for example, in a school that needs a program for third graders, Heads Up will focus its program in that school on the third grade. In Columbus, librarians visit the public schools each spring to promote their summer reading programs, and the schools have helped the librarians with everything from encouraging at-risk students to participate to filming TV commercials.

2. Form partnerships with other services.

Many summer programs that are successful in recruiting needy kids do so by forming strong links with other services that reach out to the most disadvantaged families in their communities. By partnering with these other services, they reach the children who need them the most.

Good examples of programs linked with other services include West Virginia's Energy Express, a summer learning program partnering with the Summer Food Service Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Reach Out and Read, a national program aimed at promoting early childhood literacy, has volunteers read books to children while they wait in doctors' waiting rooms, and instructs physicians to talk with parents about reading with their children. The Houston READ Commission reaches out to the children of students in its adult literacy programs. The library program in Columbus has formed relationships with organizations like the YMCA and Boys & Girls Clubs, which pull in many at-risk kids who wouldn't normally take part in a summer reading program.

3. Make the program accessible and convenient for parents.

Another important way to reach the neediest children is make the summer program accessible and convenient for their parents. Ways to make a program more convenient include providing transportation, locating in a convenient place, scheduling the program to fit in with parents' work schedules and day-care needs, and providing meals or snacks.

The Houston READ Commission works with children of its adult literacy students while the parents themselves are being tutored. The Heads Up program has been able to recruit many at-risk children by fulfilling the child-care needs that many of their parents faced. Carole Fiore, a library program specialist at the State Library of Florida, emphasizes the need to provide programs in the places where they are needed most, including housing projects, government-sponsored child care centers, Head Start centers, hospitals and other health care agencies, migrant worker camps, inner cities and small rural towns. She suggests that summer programs should switch from an attitude of "here we are!" to one of "here we come!"

Getting kids learning (and excited about it!)

Recruiting the neediest kids is a necessary first step towards building an effective summer program, but by itself it is not enough. It is also crucial that the children in the program have quality experiences throughout the summer that keep them learning. Some effective ways to do so include the following:

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