When students receive literacy instruction outside the classroom, the benefit is clear: the majority of students maintain or grow their literacy performance, setting them up for success in school and in life.
Rev Partnership’s Extended Learning Collaborative (ELC) works with after school and summer partners to boost their existing programming by implementing effective literacy practices that align with classroom instruction. While the community partners in the Summer Scholars and After School Collaboratives have a wide range of missions and purposes, they share a common commitment to the critical nature of third grade reading as a key academic metric and a motivation to ensure all students can read on grade level by third grade.
This shared commitment makes a difference to the students who attend these community partners’ programs. Ninety eight percent of students who participated in the spring 2023 After School Collaborative (ASC) grew or maintained their literacy performance, with 87 percent showing growth. Additionally, 47 percent of ASC participants met their MAP growth target, compared to 43 percent of students in the control group. When ELC community partners can weave literacy instruction into their curriculum, they equip their students with a foundational academic skill to succeed.
Rev Partnership supports community partners that participate in the Summer Scholars and After School Collaboratives with a toolkit of evidence-basedpractices:
- Effective practice rubric informed by national research and co-developed with district leaders.
- Goal setting to support community partners in moving “up” the rubric each year.
- Literacy Support Specialists (LSS) who provide daily literacy instruction and administer the in-program assessment.
- Training for LSSs in effective literacy instruction to ensure continuity of instruction between in-school and out-of-school time.
- In-program assessment to measure literacy growth and proficiency throughout the duration of each summer program.
- Data analysis on program impact, analyzing data metrics for students in programming compared to students not in programming. Data metrics include MAP Reading Growth, MAP Reading Fluency, STAAR literacy, and other indicators of literacy success.
- Continuous improvement conversations using the data to support community partners in annual improvement.
At select community partner sites, certain grade levels demonstrated above-average national MAP growth. For example, one community partner experienced average growth of 9.33 on the RIT scale among its second-grade students, compared to the national mean of 4.37.
Dedicated staff impact the effectiveness of these community partners, making recruitment and retention imperative. In 2022 private philanthropy funded an Out of School Time (OST) pilot to test and measure various incentives to increase staff recruitment and retention. Participating community partners used these funds to fill open staff positions and offer pay increases to returning staff. The average retention rate of employees who received a pay increase was 94 percent, and all participating community partners reported high employee satisfaction.
Most importantly, the pilot saw a correlation between staff retention and student outcomes. Students enrolled with community partners that participated in the OST pilot demonstrated literacy growth on the MAP assessment at higher rates than students enrolled with community partners that did not participate in the pilot.
The Extended Learning Collaborative is dedicated to collaborating with community partners to provide the best literacy experience possible for all participating students, which in turn can impact the entire family. As one participating parent said, “I truly appreciate the help it offers our family so that we can work and provide a better life for our kids.”