Can Center-Based Care Reduce Summer Slowdown Prior to Kindergarten? Exploring Variation by Family Income, Race/Ethnicity, and Dual Language Learner Status

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen

Study examines how children’s language and math skills develop during the summer before kindergarten, focusing on differences by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language learner status, and testing whether summer center-based care sustains preschool gains. Skill growth slowed during summer for all children, with distinct patterns across domains and groups. Non-White and dual language learner students showed the largest language declines. Lower-income students grew more slowly in math, while center-based care related to faster math growth. Lower-income attenders still had slower language growth; implications are discussed.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages36

Reading Time1 h 31 min

AccessFree to download

Gaps in test scores

Academic skills in summer and center-based care

Prior research and policy context

Summer breaks, readiness, and evidence-based programs

Study contributions

American Educational Research Journal April 2021, Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 420–455 DOI: 10.3102/0002831220944908 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions) 􀀂 2020 AERA. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/aer](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/aer) Can Center-Based Care Reduce Summer Slowdown Prior to Kindergarten? Exploring Variation by Family Income, Race/Ethnicity, and Dual Language Learner Status Meghan P. McCormick Mirjana Pralica MDRC Paola Guerrero-Rosada Christina Weiland University of Michigan JoAnn Hsueh Barbara Condliffe MDRC Jason Sachs Boston Public Schools Catherine Snow Harvard Graduate School of Education This study examines growth in language and math skills during the summer before kindergarten; considers variation by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language learner status; and tests whether summer center-based care sustains preschool gains. Growth in skills slowed during summer for all children, but the patterns varied by domain and group. Non-White and dual language learner students showed the largest drop-off in language skills during summer. Lower-income students demonstrated slower summer growth in math skills than their higher-income peers. Students enrolled in summer center-based care had faster growth in math skills than those who did not attend care. Yet lower-income students who attended center-based care showed slower growth in language skills during summer than similar nonattenders. Implications are discussed. KEYWORDS: summer learning, academic skills, preschool, kindergarten readiness Gaps in test scores backgrounds are between children from more versus less advantaged large (Reardon & Portilla, 2016), and emerge in the Academic Skills in Summer, Center-Based Care years before children start kindergarten (von Hippel et al., 2018) . Supported by evidence that high-quality preschool programs may lessen gaps that disadvantage lower-income, racial/ethnic minority, and dual language learner (DLL) children (Yoshikawa et al., 2016), a number of states and cities across the country have made major investments to expand access to early childhood education in the year or two prior to kindergarten. Yet little is known about growth, loss, or maintenance of students’ academic skills during the summer between preschool and kindergarten, when most school-based preschool programs are on break (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2019) . Given work showing that children’s readiness for kindergarten is predictive of later academic achievement (G. J. Duncan et al. , 2007) and educational attainment (Jones et al., 2015), it is critical to understand the role that the summer prior to kindergarten plays in promoting children’s school readiness. Prior research examining the elementary school grades has found that summer school breaks can contribute to income- and race-based gaps in test scores (e.g. , Alexander et al. , 2016; Heyns, 1978; McEachin et al. , 2018) . Such work has spurred policymakers’ interest in enhancing the quality of lower-income and minority students’ summer break experiences. For example, the Every Student Succeeds Act passed by the federal government in 2015 encourages states and districts to use flexible funds to support evidence-based summer learning programs. Given growing support for both preschool and summer programming (e.g., McCombs et al., 2019), it is important to better understand patterns of summer learning prior to MEGHAN P. MCCORMICK is a research associate at MDRC, 200 Vesey Street, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10281; [e-mail:](e-mail: meghan.mccormick@mdrc.org. She is an applied devel)[ meghan.mccormick@mdrc.org](e-mail: meghan.mccormick@mdrc.org. She is an applied devel)[. She is an applied devel](e-mail: meghan.mccormick@mdrc.org. She is an applied devel)opmental psychologist studying early childhood programs and policies. MIRJANA PRALICA is a research analyst at MDRC. She is a statistical a

FAQs

What skills does the study track during the summer before kindergarten?

The study examines growth in children’s language and math skills during the summer prior to kindergarten.

Do skill patterns differ by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language learner status?

Yes. Growth slowed for all children, but the patterns varied by domain and group, with non-White and dual language learner students showing the largest language drop-off.

How does summer center-based care relate to skill growth?

Students enrolled in summer center-based care showed faster math skill growth than those who did not attend. However, lower-income students who attended care still showed slower language growth than similar nonattenders.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen