Fort Worth’s day camps help kids avoid summer slide in reading. Here’s how
Nearly all the students who participated in Fort Worth’s summer day camps over the past four years have either avoided summer learning loss or gained ground in reading, a city official told the Fort Worth City Council on Tuesday.
Monique Hill, assistant director of the Fort Worth Parks and Recreation Department, presented numbers showing that between 97-100% of the summer program’s participants either maintained or improved their reading skills each summer. Education researchers say summer is a critical time for students because many lose some of the knowledge and skills they learned the previous year while they’re out of school.
Education researchers have been concerned about summer learning losses — sometimes known as “summer slide” — for decades. In a study released in 2020, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the RAND Corporation found that, while some students can avoid learning loss or even make academic gains, others lose an amount that’s equivalent to nearly everything they learned during the previous school year.
The parks department launched its literacy initiative in 2018, in partnership with Read Fort Worth, which has since rebranded as the Rev Partnership. The literacy project grew out of the 100x25 FWTX initiative, which sought to have all of the city’s third-graders on grade level in reading by this year. The department used money from the city manager’s office to hire literacy support specialists to work with students attending day camps at the city’s community centers.
In the summer of 2021, 2023 and 2024, majorities of students in the day camps gained ground in reading, according to the city’s numbers. The city didn’t have student progress data for the summer of 2022. Of the 455 students in the program last year, about two-thirds showed growth in reading on a test at the end of the program. Another 30% held steady, maintaining the reading skills they had at the end of the school year but not making significant gains.
Among other strategies, the literacy support specialists incorporate literacy skills into fun activities so students don’t necessarily realize they’re working on reading, Hill said. For example, some specialists set up scavenger hunts that involve finding certain words around the community center. So students are practicing sight words while they’re having fun, she said.
Mayor Parker calls for citywide push in reading
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said the program is an example of the role that city leaders can play in helping kids become stronger readers. Over the past year, Parker has called on elected officials, as well as the broader community, to get involved in the issue of literacy, which she and others have called a crisis.
Across Fort Worth, 35% of public school students scored on grade level in reading on last year’s state test, according to a report by the nonprofit Fort Worth Education Partnership. That figure includes all public schools in the city, spanning all or parts of 12 school districts, as well as nine public charter school networks.
For at least a decade, Fort Worth ISD, the city’s largest school district, has lagged behind other big urban school districts in reading. During a meeting last year, Parker called on the district’s school board to do more to
Speaking to the Star-Telegram, Parker acknowledged that the literacy problem extends well beyond Fort Worth. Record numbers of students nationwide scored below basic in reading on this year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly referred to as the Nation’s Report Card. That score means those students haven’t mastered even the basic skills needed to become proficient readers.
But Parker said that any city that’s growing as quickly as Fort Worth needs a world-class public education system. The work the agencies like the parks department and the library system have done to help students develop reading skills is an example of the city’s commitment to be a partner with its school districts to solve the literacy crisis, she said.
“These are all of our kids. Their success really is reflective of our city’s long-term success,” Parker said. “And I think we’re doubling down on efforts that we know will make an impact.”
