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Title 1 schools dedicate themselves to providing, “a fair, equitable, and high-quality education,” to all children, and closing the gaps in educational achievement. They create a more level playing field for students that normally sit on the academic sidelines. Often, the circumstances that put those students there in the first place are out of their control.

Parent and Family Engagement

One of the key pillars of the Title I, Part A federal program is Parent and Family Engagement (PFE). Family engagement requires the systematic inclusion of the family of the student in various activities. This includes the planning and evaluation of these programs and activities. The family involvement encourages the child’s positive development, academically and otherwise. 

Who Qualifies as Family?

Many different adults qualify as “family,” including any adult that could raise or care for a child. This could mean biological parents, or it could mean grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents, legal guardians, informal guardians, and even adult siblings.

Why Include Family Engagement?

Family involvement in a child’s education better predicts their academic success than socioeconomic status does. Students with more family involvement adapt better to school, have better social skills, receive higher grades, have better attendance, learn to read quicker, and are more likely to graduate.

ThinkStretch and Title I’s Parent and Family Engagement Requirement

We at ThinkStretch realize the value of family engagement, and designed our various programs to empower students and adults alike.

Our summer learning program includes an educational parent night, medal ceremony, as well as a parent guide. These pieces of the program fulfill Title 1 schools’ parent and family engagement requirements, qualifying ThinkStretch for Title 1 funding. This makes our Summer Learning Program the perfect way to meet Title 1 expectations. It also ensures students retain all of their important knowledge and skills over the summer.

It’s not a summer workbook, it’s an entire turn-key summer program. All students start the year on the same foot, closing the achievement gap, and parents and teachers become meaningful partners in their child’s education.

You can find more information or download a sample of any of our three programs (Summer Learning, Brain Freeze, and Brain Gain) here.

The Summer Reading Challenge is an online way to encourage students and families to read over the summer by logging 20 minutes of reading five days a week.

Each time a student logs 20 minutes they earn a raffle ticket for a prize drawing. Students can create their personal online logins and track their progress as they earn raffle tickets.  Register for the Summer Reading  Challenge!

Earn Extra Points with BrainGain Questions 

BrainGain questions earn even more raffle entries! Reading comprehension is key to keeping reading skills strong over the summer. Every time students log reading minutes, they will have the opportunity to answer a BrainGain question. BrainGain questions range from “Name five words that caught your attention while reading” to “Summarize the story in 3 sentences.”

Keep Learning by Doing Summer Fun Activities

Entertain Your Brain activities offer hands on science, math, reading and writing exploration. On each student’s personal challenge page there is a scrolling bar of Entertain Your Brain activities. With new activities every week, kids and families can explore science activities like “homemade silly putty” and “electricity in your mouth.”

Our reading lists ensure that finding the right book is never a problem. And our outdoor games and activities keep kids off the couch.

Customize the Summer Reading Challenge for Your School

ThinkStretch now offers school and student specific reporting on reading minutes and comprehension activities completed.  Our custom option offers you the ability to report on student reading minutes by school, classroom or grade level. You can also review the answers to the BrainGain questions by student.

In addition, schools can create special prizes and rewards for kids. From passes to the front of the lunch line to certificates of success for reading milestones achieved, your school can create a program that works best for your student population. If you’re interested in adding the Summer Reading Challenge for your school, contact Amy Pachera at pachera@thinkstretch.com.

Sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge! 

Whew!  That was a lot in 90 seconds!

Would you like to download a free sample to review now?

Summer Learning has been researched extensively in the hopes that we can collectively come to a better understanding of what happens to students during the long summer months. We’ve been following that research closely and no matter the researcher, the results are always the same, summer learning is key to a student’s education.

We’ve been collecting some of the findings, and we put a few of the results into an infographic for an easily accessible source for summer learning stats and information. Check it out below and let us know what you think!

Congratulations to our 2016 Summer Reading Challenge Winners!

Three young readers have been randomly selected to win an iPod Touch, Kindle and iPod nano.

All summer long, these readers logged their minutes in the ThinkStretch Summer Reading Challenge.  For every 20 minutes of reading they logged, they earned a raffle ticket into a prize drawing for an iPod Touch and a Kindle.

ThinkStretch Summer Reading Challenge Readers logged 121,151 minutes this summer and earned a total of 474 raffle tickets.

Readers were also challenged to complete a BrainGain question about the books they were reading.  Each BrainGain question earned a raffle ticket into a random drawing for an iPod nano.

This year’s Summer Reading Challenge winners are…

CARTER, from Grove Christian School, VA wins the iPod Touch!

DAVID, from Holly Academy, MI wins the Kindle!

CHARLOTTE, from Greene Street Friends, PA wins the iPad nano!

Congratulations on having your students complete their ThinkStretch Summer Workbook!

Order medals for your students now!

The questions around summer learning loss are many!  Is it the parent’s responsibility? Does it only affect some children? Will it impact a student’s future? Let’s tackle these questions one by one…

Is summer learning loss a parent’s responsibility?
Yes, AND a school responsibility

KEY FACT
Parents consistently cite summer as the most difficult time to ensure that their children have productive things to do (Duffett et al. 2004)

Schools must think outside of the school year to support their parents through out the summer months.  Parents understand their school year responsibilities – ensure homework is complete, stay engaged in classroom activities, and make sure their children arrive at school ready to learn.  However, many parents are ill equipped to create learning materials over the summer or to understand what type of activities they should be engaging in to maintain school year learning.

Does summer learning loss impact ALL students?
YES!!! Every student loses learning.

KEY FACT
Summer learning loss is NOT correlated to race, IQ or gender (Cooper, 1996)

It’s just how the brain works – if you do not use information, it can simply be lost or much more difficult to retrieve.  Back in the day when we had to memorize phone numbers, it was easier to recall your home number than the number of the dentist you only called twice a year.  It is the same for students – if they do not use their spelling skills or practice their math facts, that knowledge is often lost over the summer.

Does summer learning loss impact ALL students the SAME?
NO!!! Low income students lose more learning.

KEY FACT
Low-income students lose more than two months in reading achievement, more than other income groups.  (Cooper, 1996)

While every student loses math and writing skill because these skills are not widely practiced over the summer, low income students loose much more reading skill than than middle and upper income students.  This could be due to a lack of access to reading material, difficulty accessing community resources like libraries, or less familiarity with the message and culture of “summer reading”.

Is a child’s future impacted by summer learning loss?
YES!!! High school achievement is directly impacted.

KEY FACT
About two-thirds of the ninth-grade achievement gap between lower and higher income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities during the elementary school years (Alexander et al. 2007)

Higher achievement gaps lead to higher high school drop out rates.  Students who are more than 3 years behind in reading level, which can be directly correlated to summer learning loss, are significantly more likely to drop out of school.  In addition, students who are behind in skill levels are less likely to engage in college prep classes and attend 2 or 4 year degree programs.

The Thinkstretch summer learning program is an effective, affordable and fun way to combat summer learning loss through out elementary school while engaging parents, students and teachers.

Did you know that “on average, students lose about 2.6 months’ worth of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills during their summer break,” says OnlineCollege.org? It’s called summer learning loss and that’s a pretty scary number, considering the school year is only a little more than three times that long.

Why does this matter to a college site? Because the enrichment children do or do not receive in the summers of their elementary years have a huge impact on how well they’ll do in secondary school, higher education and later life. If you want to close the achievement gap and make sure your kids maintain critical math and reading skills over the summer break, here are a few crucial characteristics you can prioritize as a family.

Taking Educational Trips

Going to the zoo, museums or just the park engages kids with the world around them. Reading signs, counting animals and getting away from television and video games has real learning results. Families that prioritize educational outings can really make a difference in halting summer learning loss.

Going to the Library

There’s no better way to keep reading skills up than giving students access to plenty of material. Heading to the neighborhood library is fun and free, and kids come home with lots of wholesome material to entertain them afterward. Where possible, make reading together a huge priority as well.

Using Summer Learning Programs

The ThinkStretch Summer Learning Program is specially formulated to match grade levels. Each program is a complete system that comes with grade-specific workbooks, parent guides, achievement medals, parent engagement nights and a culminating ceremony. That way, you can bring all the motivation of the traditional classroom to learning over the break and mitigate summer learning loss.

Of course, summer learning programs aren’t the only way students can maintain their math and reading skills. Where possible, you should combine learning programs with valuable outings that enrich kids and help them keep their skills sharp. Doing so will help close that achievement gap and get them to college, so they have the opportunity to choose the most fulfilling life for them.

Stop Summer Learning Loss

Download our sample summer workbook and program information kit.  Let’s stop summer learning loss together!

Summer learning loss is a chronic problem impacting our children that grows the achievement gap with vulnerable students every year.

The achievement gap refers to the persistent difference in reading, writing, and math scores between groups of students defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Over 100 years ago, in 1906, education researchers began exploring the effects of summer learning loss on student achievement. As we entered the 21st century, researchers began evaluating the link between summer learning loss and the achievement gap.

Brian Williams, host of NBC Nightly News, and his wife Jane, have been committed to reducing the achievement gap and tackling the issue of summer learning loss in low income students for over two decades. In this short video, Brian Williams narrates the story of two children’s futures based on their summer learning experiences.