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Effects of an Afterschool Early Literacy Intervention on the Reading Skills of Children in Public Housing Communities

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Abstract

Background

Afterschool programs (ASPs) in the United States have been implemented in low income neighborhoods to enable at-risk youth to access educational support services to increase academic skills. However, mixed findings about the ASPs positively affecting academic performance suggests a need for additional evaluative studies.

Objective

The current study examines the effects of literacy training on the reading skills of kindergarten to third grade students who were enrolled in a community-based ASP in four public housing neighborhoods. Participants received structured literacy and reading training, individual tutoring, and a choice-based book distribution program.

Method

Assignment to treatment and comparison groups was based on residence in public housing neighborhoods. We implemented a quasi-experimental design to compare improvements in reading proficiency among ASP literacy program participants in four public housing neighborhoods and a comparable group of students residing in two other public housing neighborhoods without this ASP. Participants were enrolled in grades K to 3 (n = 543). The study lasted for 4 years, and an intent-to-treat approach was used to analyze outcomes.

Results

Mixed-effects models indicated that among a full sample and propensity-score matched sample, ASP participants demonstrated significantly better reading proficiency than comparison group participants over time.

Conclusions

Study findings provide preliminary evidence that it is possible to impact reading proficiency for very high-risk students in the early grades of elementary school. ASPs that target literacy among low-income students could play an important role in boosting student achievement, and therefore in narrowing the achievement gap as young people progress through school.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Social Innovation Fund, a White House initiative and program of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Program and evaluation activities described in this manuscript were made possible by Mile High United Way, the Bridge Project, and the University of Denver. We thank Jesse Burne, Executive Director of the Bridge Project, for his support in conducting this investigation.

Funding

This study was funded by the Social Innovative Fund (Grant No. 37366).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. OMNI Institute, 899 Logan Street, Suite 600, Denver, CO, 80203, USA

    Sara Douglass Bayless & Melissa K. Richmond

  2. University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Jeffrey M. Jenson & Miranda Cook

  3. University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Fred C. Pampel

  4. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Molly Calhoun

Authors
  1. Sara Douglass Bayless
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  2. Jeffrey M. Jenson
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  3. Melissa K. Richmond
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  4. Fred C. Pampel
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  5. Miranda Cook
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Contributions

Intake data were collected jointly by researchers at two institutions, where the second and third authors were Principal Investigators, and they take responsibility for the integrity of that data. Outcome data were provided by an analyst at the school system and could not be independently verified by any members of the research team. The first author takes responsibility for the accuracy of the data analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sara Douglass Bayless.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from the parents of all individual participants included in the study.

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Bayless, S.D., Jenson, J.M., Richmond, M.K. et al. Effects of an Afterschool Early Literacy Intervention on the Reading Skills of Children in Public Housing Communities. Child Youth Care Forum 47, 537–561 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-018-9442-5

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