A significant body of research highlights the negative impact of summer learning loss, where students experience academic setbacks when they are not engaged in learning during school breaks. This issue disproportionately affects children in low-income and under-resourced communities, where access to summer educational opportunities is often limited, further widening the achievement gap.

To address this issue, The Duke Endowment created The Rural Church Summer Literacy Initiative, which was tested in one church in summer of 2013 and grew to 22 churches this past summer. William Aldridge, PhD, a senior implementation specialist at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), began helping the Endowment define the program nearly three years ago as an independent contractor through the American Institutes for Research.

In January 2024, the Endowment awarded a contract to FPG to work as an intermediary organization to support the program. Aldridge, a founding member of the leadership team for The Impact Center at FPG, serves as team lead alongside co-lead Capri Banks, MA, an FPG implementation specialist. Together they oversee the five (and growing) FPG specialists working through the current one-year grant. Aldridge hopes to be invited for a multiyear grant in the next funding cycle.

The goals of the Rural Church Literacy Initiative include improving literacy outcomes for students at risk for below grade level reading and encouraging churches to play an effective role in helping children and families. The Duke Endowment works with rural United Methodist congregations throughout North Carolina to provide evidence-informed summer literacy programs for rising first- through third graders. Endowment funding supports these churches in working with local public schools and other community partners to recruit 24 to 48 students who have been identified at school as being reading below grade level expectations.

A full day of programming is provided Monday through Friday for four to six weeks in church buildings. Teachers trained in the science of reading offer 80 to 90 hours of reading instruction in the mornings while each afternoon includes a variety of student enrichment activities. The young people receive a daily healthy breakfast and lunch, and their parents and/or guardians are engaged through weekly workshops and other activities.

The Endowment refers to the initiative as a faith-placed program rather than a faith-based program because the churches see the program as a way to extend their ministry in a non-religious oriented way. The program has shown such positive results that the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has listed it as a promising practice.

Aldridge and his team are supporting the initiative’s program development in a variety of ways, including helping to produce a more accessible and usable way of packaging the program materials and information so that it is easily understood and used by the pastors, site directors, teachers, enrichment coordinators, and volunteers involved with the program. The FPG team is exploring the literature on enrichment activities and family engagement to ensure that the program is utilizing updated standards and evidence-based best practices. The support specialists are helping to strengthen the program by developing broader training and coaching systems for those delivering the program.

The work also includes exploring how to provide ongoing consultation to help program leaders and volunteers acquire the information in the repackaged program, be supported in their delivery of it, and grow in the confidence to do it as intended. The team is examining best ways to incorporate into the program diverse family needs, values, and cultural preferences as well as social emotional learning components and trauma-informed practices.

“There are a number of students who have trauma in their background or are experiencing barriers that align with social determinants of health within their families,” said Aldridge. “We are looking at how we wrap support around the student and the family.”

“There are a number of students who have trauma in their background or are experiencing barriers that align with social determinants of health within their families,” said Aldridge. “We are looking at how we wrap support around the student and the family.” In addition to helping with the programmatic pieces, Aldridge and his colleagues are playing their more typical implementation support role by exploring how to use effective implementation practices for the program. This includes looking at clear leadership and team management structures and providing day-to-day supports needed by teachers, enrichment coordinators, and volunteers.

The FPG group is also using data to inform quality improvement, so that local leaders and teams can see the adjustments needed. Aldridge said that he and his colleagues wish to build the capacity at the local sites for supporting delivery of the program with fidelity, but also in a way that is very responsive to the local culture, the families, and their values and preferences.

“We want to make sure that the program has its intended impacts, which means it needs to be delivered in a way that creates a sense of inclusion and belonging for these families that may not traditionally be interacting with these churches and, in some cases, may have different experiences in how they interact with the school environment,” said Aldridge. “We want to make sure that everybody feels supported and experiences success.”

“We want to make sure that the program has its intended impacts, which means it needs to be delivered in a way that creates a sense of inclusion and belonging for these families that may not traditionally be interacting with these churches and, in some cases, may have different experiences in how they interact with the school environment,” said Aldridge. “We want to make sure that everybody feels supported and experiences success.”