Effects of a Summer Tutoring Program on Foundational Skills and Reading Comprehension in Grades K-5

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an 18-day summer tutoring program in which university students delivered a 45-minute daily tutoring session to students in grades K-5 comprising 15 minutes of differentiated instruction and a 30-minute interactive read-aloud (grades K-2) or shared reading (grades 3-5) lesson. Students attending summer school (N = 99) completed measures of letter-sound knowledge, decoding skills, and/or oral reading fluency, depending on group placement, at the beginning and end of summer school. Students who attended the school, including those who attended summer school, completed the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2) or the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension (TOSREC) in spring and fall, depending on grade, with an additional testing point at the end of summer to assess spring-to-summer gains for students who attended the summer program. Tutors implemented lessons with acceptable fidelity. Results from paired-samples statistical tests indicated significant pretest-to-posttest gains on measures of single-syllable decoding skills but not letter-sound knowledge, multisyllabic decoding skills, or oral reading fluency for students who attended summer school. Students who attended summer school also experienced significant spring-to-summer gains on TOSREC but not TOWRE-2. ANCOVAs on fall scores controlling for spring scores indicated no significant differences between students who attended and did not attend summer school on TOSREC, but students who attended summer school experienced lower fall scores on TOWRE-2. Results suggest that a summer tutoring program delivered by university students can lead to short-term spring-to-summer gains in foundational skills and silent reading comprehension.