READS for Summer Learning is an evidence-based summer literacy intervention that improves children's reading comprehension by fostering their engagement with books over the summer. Children are “engaged” with books when they are motivated to read them on their own and in ways that increase their reading comprehension. The three key elements (“ABCs”) of READS for Summer Learning are:

• Access to books at home, including a wide variety of texts
• Books that are well-matched to each child’s reading level and interests
• Comprehension activities, including teacher scaffolding of summer book reading through end-of-year lessons, summer follow-up phone calls, and family support of summer reading

During this webinar, participants will learn about the foundational principles and core components of the READS for Summer Learning intervention, as well as the research supporting this approach. They will reflect on what this work might mean for their summer programming. Finally, they will walk away with some ideas for evaluating program effectiveness. For more information about READS, visit the project website: https://reads.gse.harvard.edu/ Dr. Mary Burkhauser is a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard READS Lab (led by Professor James Kim) where she develops literacy curriculum materials and studies their implementation. Mary has spent the last 5 years working on READS for Summer Learning - an evidence-based summer literacy intervention for students in high-poverty schools. Currently, she is working on a new science-literacy intervention called a Model of Reading Engagement (MORE). Before coming to Harvard, Mary was a middle-school English teacher in New York and a research analyst at Child Trends in Washington, DC.

Webinar will be recorded.

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