1

September 2004

Children enter kindergarten showing wide achievement gaps

by family socioeconomic status (SES) (Coley 2002; Lee and

Burkam 2002).1 A number of studies suggest that achievement gaps grow during the summer months when children

are away from school (Heyns 1978; Cooper et al. 1996;

Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson 2001). This finding may be

related to a number of factors, including differences in

children’s summer activities; children may differ by SES group

in the extent to which they have the opportunity to engage in

activities that reinforce school learning or broaden knowledge more generally—activities such as reading, attending library programs, or visiting museums. However, we know relatively little about the extent to which children actually differ

by SES group in their engagement in these kinds of activities

during the summer months.

This Issue Brief provides a description of children’s participation in various activities during the summer after kindergarten. Children’s participation in activities is compared across a

measure of SES. This Brief also takes a closer look at one

summer activity in particular—children’s library use. The Issue Brief draws on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K), which

provide nationally representative information regarding the

approximately 3.9 million children enrolled in kindergarten

during the 1998–99 school year. The ECLS-K included a parent interview in fall 1999 that asked parents about their

children’s participation in activities during the summer of

1999.2

The Summer After Kindergarten: Children’s

Activities and Library Use by Household

Socioeconomic Status

U.S. Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

NCES 2004–037

IssueBrief

The categorical measure of household SES used in this Issue

Brief is based on a continuous, composite variable derived

from parental education, parental occupation, and household

income in spring 1999.3 Findings are reported separately for

children in households with low, middle, and high SES. Low

SES signifies the bottom 20 percent of the variable’s distribution, middle SES the middle 60 percent, and high SES the top

20 percent. All findings presented in this Issue Brief are descriptive in nature and based on parent reports.4

Participation in Activities During the Summer

Children in households with low SES were the least likely to

participate in each of the nine activities listed in table 1 during the summer after their kindergarten year, while children

in households with high SES were the most likely to do so.

For example, 20 percent of low SES children went to art,

science, or discovery museums over the summer compared to

38 percent of middle SES children and 62 percent of high SES

children. Forty-five percent of low SES children went to a

zoo, aquarium, or petting farm while 64 percent of middle

SES children and 71 percent of high SES children did so. Some

46 percent of low SES children went to a library over the

course of the summer compared to 66 percent of middle SES

children and 80 percent of high SES children.

The ECLS-K asked parents a series of additional questions

concerning children’s library participation, including the numTable 1. Percentage of children who participated in various activities during the summer after kindergarten, by socioeconomic status

(SES): 1999

NOTE: All estimates are based on parental reports. Sample sizes may differ by column because cases with missing data were excluded. Household SES is a

composite variable based on parental education, parental occupation, and household income in spring 1999. Low SES signifies the bottom 20 percent of the

variable’s distribution, middle SES the middle 60 percent, and high SES the top 20 percent. Not all apparent differences in this table are statistically significant.

Standard errors are available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2004037.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K),

spring and fall 1999.

Art, Zoo,

State or science, or aquarium, Day or

national discovery or petting Historic Concerts overnight

Library Bookstore parks museums farm sites or plays Vacation camp

Total 64.8 53.0 55.1 38.9 61.2 39.9 24.4 75.2 20.4

Low SES 46.4 30.7 43.6 19.5 45.0 21.1 13.6 53.7 5.4

Middle SES 66.2 52.8 57.1 38.0 63.7 41.4 23.3 76.9 18.4

High SES 80.2 77.3 61.3 62.4 70.6 54.8 39.3 93.1 42.5

Household SES
2

ber of visits children made to libraries over the summer, whether

or not the children participated in story time at the library,

and whether or not the children had a neighborhood library.

Because library visits were so common for all groups of children, and because of this activity’s potential for academic enrichment (Heyns 1978), this Issue Brief explores children’s library usage in greater depth.

Library Use by SES and Neighborhood Library

Availability

Table 2 provides more detailed information on the extent and

nature of children’s library use in the summer after kindergarten, in terms of average number of visits and participation in

story time. While table 1 shows that low SES children were

the least likely to visit a library at all over the summer and

high SES children were the most likely to do so, table 2 shows

that—of those children that visited a library—low SES library

visitors went, on average, less often (4 times) than middle or

high SES visitors (7 times each). However, among those children who visited a library over the summer, low SES and middle

SES library visitors were more likely to attend story time at a

library than high SES library visitors (27 percent and 26 percent compared to 20 percent).

Library use also varied by parental report of neighborhood

library availability. Compared to children whose parents reported having no neighborhood library, children whose parents reported a neighborhood library were more likely to visit

a library at least once over the summer (70 percent compared

to 47 percent). In addition, children who visited the library

over the summer went more frequently if their parents reported

having a neighborhood library (7 times on average compared

to 5 times on average). These two relationships held for low

and middle SES children. Parental report of neighborhood library availability varied by SES; low SES parents (64 percent)

were less likely than middle SES parents (81 percent) to report

having a neighborhood library, and both groups were less likely

than high SES parents (91 percent) to do so.

Another way to examine the data in table 2 is to look at how

children’s library use varies by household SES while taking

into account parental reports of neighborhood library availability. Among children whose parents reported no neighborhood library, low SES children were the least likely to visit the

library (31 percent) while high SES children were the most

likely to do so (72 percent). In addition, when no neighborhood library was reported, low SES library visitors went less

frequently, on average, than middle or high SES library visitors (4 times compared to 5 and 6 times, respectively). These

relationships also held among children whose parents reported

having a neighborhood library. However, the difference between the percentage of low and high SES children who visited the library was smaller in neighborhoods with a library

than in those without one (26 percentage point gap compared

to 41 percentage point gap). Among children whose parents

reported no neighborhood library, low SES library visitors attended story time at higher levels than high SES library visitors (28 percent compared to 15 percent).

Conclusion

In summary, the broad picture of children’s involvement in

activities during the summer after their kindergarten year shows

substantial differences in participation by socioeconomic status (SES). Low SES children were the least likely SES group to

participate in the summer activities investigated in this Issue

Brief; high SES children were the most likely to participate in

these same activities.

Looking more closely at children’s summer library use reveals

a more complicated picture. Low SES children were the least

likely SES group to go to the library, and if they did go, they

went less frequently than children in the other SES groups.

However, low SES library visitors attended story time at levels

as high as or higher than library visitors from other SES groups.

The gap between the percentage of low and high SES children

who visited the library was smaller for those children whose

parents reported having a neighborhood library than for those

children whose parents reported no neighborhood library.

Table 2. Children’s library usage during the summer after kindergarten, according to neighborhood library availability, by socioeconomic status (SES): 1999

NOTE: All estimates are based on parental reports. Sample sizes may differ by column because cases with missing data were excluded. Household SES is a

composite variable based on parental education, parental occupation, and household income in spring 1999. Low SES signifies the bottom 20 percent of the

variable’s distribution, middle SES the middle 60 percent, and high SES the top 20 percent. Not all apparent differences in this table are statistically significant.

Standard errors are available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2004037.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K),

spring and fall 1999.

Percent

with Mean Percent Mean Percent Mean Percent

library in Percent number attended Percent number attended Percent number attended

neighbor- visited of visits story time visited of visits story time visited of visits story time

hood library to library at library library to library at library library to library at library 

Total 79.1 64.8 6.5 24.5 69.9 6.8 25.0 46.7 5.0 21.3

Low SES 64.3 46.4 4.5 27.3 55.6 4.7 26.8 30.8 3.7 28.2

Middle SES 80.5 66.2 6.8 25.6 69.7 7.1 26.5 52.8 5.2 20.1

High SES 90.7 80.2 6.9 20.0 81.1 7.0 20.5 71.8 6.0 14.9

Children with Children with

Household 

SES

 no library in neighborhood

Library visitors

All children

Library visitors Library visitors

 library in neighborhood
3

The Issue Brief series presents information on education topics of current interest. All estimates shown are based on samples and are subject to sampling

variability. All differences are statistically significant at the .05 level. In the design, conduct, and data processing of National Center for Education Statistics

(NCES) surveys, efforts are made to minimize the effects of nonsampling errors, such as item nonresponse, measurement error, data processing error, or other

systematic error. For more information on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, visit http://nces.ed.gov/ecls.

This Issue Brief was prepared by David Meyer, Daniel Princiotta, and Lawrence Lanahan of the Education Statistics Services Institute (ESSI). This Issue Brief was

desktopped by Carol Rohr of Pinkerton Computer Consultants, Inc. For further information, contact Edith McArthur, NCES, at (202) 502-7393 or

Edith.McArthur@ed.gov. To order additional copies of this Issue Brief or other NCES publications, call 1 (877) 4ED-Pubs or visit http://www.edpubs.org. NCES

publications are also available on the Internet at http://nces.ed.gov/.

The list of summer activities investigated in this Issue Brief is

by no means comprehensive, and further research could expand the list. Future research based on the Early Childhood

Longitudinal Study could improve our understanding of the

linkages between summer activities, socioeconomic status, and

academic achievement.

Footnotes

1

Socioeconomic status is one’s standing relative to others with respect

to social and economic factors (such as education, occupation, and

income).

2

Analysis in this Issue Brief is based on data from 4,861 cases in the

ECLS-K fall first grade subsample. When these cases are weighted

using the C23PW0 weighting variable, estimates are representative

of the total population of children enrolled in kindergarten during

the 1998–99 school year.

3

More information on the SES variable is available in chapter 7

(section 7.4.2) of the ECLS-K Base Year Public-Use Data Files and

Electronic Codebook User’s Manual (NCES 2001–029), available

at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001029. 4

All differences discussed are statistically significant at the .05 level

as measured by two-tailed Student’s t tests. In addition to the

requirement of statistical significance, percentage point differences

are only discussed if they are greater than 5 percentage points.

References

Alexander, K.L., Entwisle, D.R., and Olson, L.S. (2001). Schools,

Achievement, and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective.

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2): 171–191.

Coley, R.J. (2002). An Uneven Start: Indicators of Inequality in School

Readiness. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Available: http://www.ets.org/research/pic/Unevenstart.pdf.

Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., and Greathouse, S.

(1996). The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test

Scores: A Narrative and Meta-Analytic Review. Review of

Educational Research, 66(3): 227–268.

Heyns, B. (1978). Summer Learning and the Effects of Schooling.

New York: Academic Press.

Lee, V.E., and Burkam, D.T. (2002). Inequality at the Starting Gate:

Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children

Begin School. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
The Summer After Kindergarten: Children’s Activities and

Library Use by Household Socioeconomic Status NCES 2004–037

The Issue Brief series presents information on education topics of current interest.

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