“Summer learning loss . . . is one of the most significant causes of the achievement gap between lower and higher income youth and one of the strongest contributors to the high school dropout rate . . . Most youth lose about 2.6months of math skills in the summer . . . By fifth grade, summer learning loss can leave low-income students 2 1/2 to3 years behind their peers.”‍

National Summer Learning Association

Mango Math is proud to have its curriculum used as the basis for the Marian University Summer Learning Institute 2016—2017 study.

MANGO Math curriculum was used by Marian University’s Summer Learning Institute in their mission to stop and reverse summer learning loss and to offer a unique vehicle for helping to build the STEM infrastructure in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Summer Learning Institute is continuing a 6-year longitudinal research study on Promising Practices for Stopping and Reversing Summer Learning Loss.

Recruiting 24 college students from five universities under the supervision of master teachers using MANGO Math’s curriculum, Marian University followed the math progress of under-represented and under-served students over a 6-week out of school period of time.

All students received three hours of math instruction per week for the 6 week period.

Marian University used AIMSweb test data (Pearson, 2012) to apply before and after tests on students’ math skills and had the testing independently scored and analyzed. A focus of the study was the number of summer math hours required to stop math learning loss.

The AIMSweb, a short-term metric, showed significant increases in scores from pre-test to post-test. Those students who spent eight or more hours of math activities over the course of the summer scored significantly higher than students who participated in fewer than 8 hours of summer math activities.

In 2016, 381 students participated in the Summer Learning Institute, 79% of those students maintained, gained or increased a grade level over the 6-week summer using the MANGO Math curriculum. On average students that participated in eight hours or more of math over the 6-weeks increased 4.01 percentile points. Those students who had fewer than eight hours of math engagement increased on average 2.22 percentile points.

In 2017, using the MANGO Math curriculum, 302 students participated in the Summer Learning Institute at 13 different site locations. Results showed that summer learning loss did not occur with any of the students who participated in the program. Hours of participation did not seem to impact learning. Data indicate that there was a significance difference in pre- to post-test on AIMSWeb progress monitoring scores. Standard deviations ranging from 2.77 up to 5.77 per program. The testing showed that there was no significant difference found between the 13 specific summer program on pre-test to post-tests. Summer Learning Institutes math activities, using MANGO Math, are making gains in math over the summer.