VELSHI: All right. In today's "Chalk Talk," fighting the summer slide. As kids get out of school on summer breaks, studies show that many of them suffer from a learning loss over the long vacation. Now, this seems to be disproportionately true in students from low-income families, mostly because those kids can't afford to go to summer camp or buy books to read over the summer. The summer slide is a pretty significant thing. Get this -- by the sixth grade, the slip in academics accounts for as much as 80 percent of the achievement gap between students from low-income families and those from middle-class families. But a possible solution is a free book program. A recent study tracked the progress of students at 17 high- poverty elementary schools in Florida. Select students were given 12 books on the last day of school every year for three years. The research found the 852 students who received books had significantly higher reading scores when they read more on their own than the 478 students who didn't get books. So, now an experimental program has expanded this free books idea to seven states. We hope to see those kids improve their reading scores as well. Every day on "Chalk Talk" we'll bring you lots of information on education and how we can improve it. OK. Imagine living in a neighborhood where everything you need is just five minutes away and where the food you eat is grown five minutes away. It's more than a dream. We'll take you there in just a minute.
Light Summer Reading for Students