With a long-term institutional focus on literacy, MCPL’s commitment to providing materials and system-wide programs for youth warrants substantial investment in terms of operating funds and staff time. MCPL’s primary strategic goal states that children from birth to age 11 will have programs and materials that stimulate their imaginations and prepare them to read at grade level. One way in which that goal is achieved is through MCPL’s Summer Reading Program (SRP). While most libraries have traditional summer reading programs, MCPL’s SRP is unique in its scope and structure. As MCPL’s longest running major initiative, SRP serves thousands of youth each year. Almost 40,000 children and teens participated in the 2012 Summer Reading Program offered through MCPL. Because of the varying needs of MCPL’s populations, MCPL offers multiple levels of the SRP to ensure children of different ages and circumstances can participate. Given the scope of MCPL’s SRP coupled with the widely varying demographics of the communities served by MCPL, the challenge was identifying who benefitted from SRP most and then demonstrating how much were they impacted by participating in SRP. MCPL discovered that here is very little research that proves what Summer Reading can achieve. MCPL decided to prove its own effectiveness while creating a study that all libraries can use to bolster their own efforts.

Because MCPL’s SRP is such a significant part of the Library’s overall programming efforts, MCPL wanted to ensure SRP’s effectiveness in a more meaningful way. While it is valid to measure the success of SRP through outputs such as number of participants, number of reading lists completed, and/or the number of incentives given away, MCPL staff were compelled to delve further to quantify the outcome of SRP on literacy, particularly for high-risk youth. As a result, MCPL proposed a study which would: - demonstrate the impact of SRP participation on student achievement, specifically related to reading skills; - guide future funding and programming strategies related to SRP for MCPL and local school districts; - contribute to scholarly research related to literacy and public educational programming. In order to pursue this study, MCPL recognized the need to partner with a non-biased, credible, and confidential organization. MCPL joined with the Kansas City Area Education Research Consortium (KC-AERC) to analyze data using a pretest-incident-posttest methodology. Beginning in 2012 with three school districts serving at-risk populations, MCPL worked with KC-AERC to track specific students’ reading comprehension scores on tests taken before and after the summer break to monitor the impact of SRP. The KC-AERC confidentially handled all of the data processing. For the analysis, KC-AERC identified appropriate scores from the spring (school district data), determined SRP participation (MCPL data), determined any other enrichment programs (e.g. summer school), and compared appropriate fall test scores (school district data). Likewise, KC-AERC was able to use library data without violating confidentiality. KC-AERC is a “firewall” between the school district and library data.

The current Summer Reading Program Effectiveness Study is a pilot, but initial results are promising. Preliminary results from the study (2012 and 2013) indicate positive SRP impact in a small sample group from the three participating school districts. Overall, the initial data analyses suggest that, in aggregate, participants in summer reading programs show more growth than students not in summer reading programs and comparative nonparticipants. Another interesting indicator showed that reading growth differences were greater for particular student groups: non-white participants and economically disadvantaged participants (receiving free and reduced lunch). The pilot suggests that children that participate in SRP don’t only combat against “summer slide” they actually grow their learning skills over the summer. Next, MCPL will increase the number of school districts participating in effort to increase the sample size. As mentioned, three districts have been recruited but, unlike other major metropolitan library districts which serve one large school district, MCPL serves 22 districts. As a result, MCPL and KC-AERC will work to involve more districts in the Study allowing all libraries to apply the results to their situation. One challenge that became evident early in the process: MCPL had to make it clear to school district administrators that achievement scores were not being compared across districts. Instead, the study established whether a district’s individual students participating in SRP showed improvement in reading skills. The point wasn’t to compare districts, but to determine the effectiveness of summer reading.