Older American Volunteers in Experience Corps Make
Big Difference in Student Reading Skills
Low-income, urban students made 60 percent more
progress with Corps tutors
April 8, 2009 A non-profit program for older
American volunteers Experience Corps is making significant
difference for students being tutored by its volunteers. A study by
Washington University in St. Louis found students with Experience Corps
tutors made 60 percent more progress in learning reading skills.
The researchers conducted a randomized,
control-group study of Experience Corps, a national program that engages
Americans over 55 in helping low-income, struggling students in urban
areas learn to read, to assess its effectiveness.
The two-year, $2
million study, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, is one of the
largest of its kind, involving more than 800 first, second and third
graders (half with Experience Corps tutors, half without) at 23
elementary schools in three cities.
The central finding: Over a single school year,
students with Experience Corps tutors made over 60 percent more progress
in learning two critical reading skills - sounding out new words and
reading comprehension - than similar students not served by the program.
"The difference in reading ability between kids who
worked with Experience Corps tutors and those who did not is substantial
and statistically significant," said Nancy Morrow-Howell, the lead
researcher and a professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social
Work at Washington University.
"This research shows that Experience Corps tutors
can increase student reading skills," said Jean Grossman, an expert in
youth mentoring programs and evaluation design at Princeton University
and Public / Private Ventures. "That's great news for parents, children,
educators and the many people of all ages who want to respond to
President Obama's call to service and want to know that their efforts
will make a significant difference."
Other key findings from the Washington University
research:
● Experience Corps tutors were able to improve
young students' reading comprehension, one of the toughest skills to
affect for struggling readers. Few other studies of tutoring
interventions for beginning readers have demonstrated improvement in
reading comprehension, a critical building block for literacy
development.
● As an intervention, Experience Corps compares
to smaller class size. Students with Experience Corps tutors get a boost
in reading skills equivalent to the boost they would get from being
assigned to a classroom with 40 percent fewer children.
● Experience Corps works for all students,
including those farthest behind. Experience Corps tutors delivered
similarly significant results for students regardless of gender,
ethnicity, grade, classroom behavior or English proficiency (25% of
tutored children use English as a second language). Half of all students
referred to Experience Corps tutors struggle so much with reading that
they are at or below the 16th percentile nationwide.
● Teachers welcome Experience Corps. Teachers
overwhelmingly rate Experience Corps as beneficial to students, while
reporting that it represents little or no burden to them.
● Experience Corps is beneficial for the older
adults themselves. Experience Corps members perceive that the program
has a positive impact on students and on their relationship with
students, an important ingredient as research shows that better
student-tutor relationships are associated with better reading outcomes.
In addition, studies by researchers at Washington University and Johns
Hopkins have shown that working with young students improves the health
and well-being of the adults themselves.
Study finds seniors volunteer less often
but contribute more hours
U.S.
Volunteers 2005
Average hours, volunteer rate
Age Group
Hours
Rate
16 to 24 years:
36
24.4%
25 to 34 years:
36
25.3%
35 to 44 years:
48
34.5%
45 to 54 years:
50
32.7%
55 to 64 years:
56
30.2%
65 years and
up:
96
24.8%
Nation:
50
28.8%
June 12, 2006 Senior Citizens are much less
likely than most younger Americans to volunteer for community service but,
when they do, they will devote many more hours to the effort. It takes almost two baby boomers to provide as many
volunteer hours as one volunteer age 65 or older. These are some of the
findings released today in a state-by-state study of volunteerism by the
federal government's Corporation for National and Community Service,
which includes the Senior Corps.
Read
more...
"The What Works Clearinghouse, which connects
educators with effective practices and interventions in education, has
reviewed over a hundred reading programs, and few of them have the type
of impact on reading that Experience Corps does," notes Mark Dynarski,
director of the clearinghouse, who is also a member of the study's
advisory panel and a vice president at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Experience Corps has 2,000 tutors helping 20,000
students in 23 U.S. cities, including Annapolis, MD; Baltimore City and
County; Beaumont, TX; Boston; Cleveland; Evansville, IN; Grand Rapids,
MI; Marin, CA; Mesa, AZ; Minneapolis; New Haven, CT; New York City;
Oakland, CA; Philadelphia; Port Arthur, TX; Portland, OR; Revere, MA;
San Francisco; St. Paul, MN; Tempe, AZ; Tucson, AZ; and Washington, DC.
"Experience Corps works because Experience Corps
members are carefully screened and trained to support local literacy
instruction," said Lester Strong, the program's CEO. "Plus most
Experience Corps members come from the neighborhoods where they serve.
They know these kids, they believe in these kids, and they see a future
in them.
"Experience Corps puts a growing national resource,
experienced Americans, to work on a pressing national need giving all
students the reading skills they need to succeed," Strong continued.
"There's no shortage of older adults nearly 10,000 Americans turn 60
every day and no shortage of kids who need help half of our urban
students never graduate from high school. We could be doing so much more
to put these two generations together."
To download a copy of the research findings,
click
here (pdf)
About the Research
In 2006, researchers at the Center for Social
Development at Washington University's Brown School of Social Work were
awarded a grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies to evaluate the effects
of the Experience Corps program on student reading outcomes. Mathematica
Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) provided data collection services.
Three school systems agreed to be part of the
study, and 23 schools in Boston, New York City and Port Arthur, Texas,
participated. At the beginning of the school year, teachers referred all
students who needed assistance with reading. More than 1,000 students
were referred, and parental consent to participate in the study was
obtained for 81 percent of those referred. Those students were then
randomly assigned to work with an Experience Corps tutor for one
academic year or to a control group. All students were tested at the
beginning and end of that academic year.
The Experience Corps program tutored 430 of these
students, and 451 were in the control group. There were 332 first, 304
second, and 186 third graders, and 420 males and 402 females in the
final data set. Analysis of pretest data collected by MPR showed that
the Experience Corps students and control groups were equivalent on all
measured characteristics.
The program succeeded in delivering the
intervention to a large number of the students. About half of students
received 30 to 49 sessions, and the mean number of sessions was 45.
Three-quarters of the students received over 35 sessions, which
represents about one session a week throughout the program period. When
including only the students who received at least 35 sessions, a
criterion that was chosen to indicate that the students received the
intervention as intended, the effects appear to be stronger.
Data for the study came from three sources:
interviews with the students, assessments completed by teachers, and
school records. MPR interviewers assessed reading ability at the
beginning and end of the school year in face-to-face interviews with the
students.
Standardized reading tests were used: the Woodcock
Johnson word attack subscale (WJ-WA), which tests students' ability to
sound out new words; the Woodcock Johnson passage comprehension subscale
(WJ-PC), which tests reading comprehension; and the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary test (PPVT-III), which tests vocabulary acquisition for young
children.
At the beginning and end of the academic year,
teachers completed assessments of grade-specific reading skills and
classroom behavior. At the end of the year, school records were
abstracted to ascertain demographics and other student characteristics,
and tutors rated the quality of their relationships with students.
About Experience Corps
Experience Corps, an award-winning program founded
in 1995, engages people over 55 in meeting their communities' greatest
challenges. Today, in 23 cities across the country, 2,000 Experience
Corps members tutor and mentor elementary school students struggling to
learn to read. Independent research shows that Experience Corps boosts
student academic performance, helps schools and youth-serving
organizations become more successful, and enhances the well-being of the
older adults in the process.
Experience Corps is supported by public and private
funders, including The Atlantic Philanthropies, the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service
(AmeriCorps), and the Deerbrook Charitable Foundation.
April 8, 2009 A non-profit program for older
American volunteers Experience Corps is making significant
difference for students being tutored by its volunteers. A study by
Washington University in St. Louis found students with Experience Corps
tutors made 60 percent more progress in learning reading skills.
