Webinar: The Power of National Service: Improving Children’s Literacy Outcomes

Posted by Corporation for National and Community Service on November 6, 2018

The Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) invites you to join our Research and Evidence webinar series. This webinar series is one of many ways ORE is sharing current research on civic engagement, volunteering, and national service.

This month, we are pleased to introduce:  The Power of National Service: Improving Children’s Literacy Outcomes

• Carrie E Markovitz, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist, Economics, Criminal Justice, and Society Department at NORC, University of Chicago
• Marc W. Hernandez, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist, the Academic Research Centers; founding Director, the Early Childhood Research and Practice Collaborative at NORC;
• Sadie O’Connor, Managing Director, Reading & Math, Inc. at University of Chicago

This webinar will be held on Wednesday, November 14, from 2:00 – 3:30 PM ET.

Please RSVP to attend.

https://events-na1.adobeconnect.com/content/connect/c1/2490562023/en/events/event/private/2499178358/2523969084/event_registration.html?sco-id=2788557220

If you have any questions, contact the CNCS Office of Research and Evaluation at evaluation@cns.gov.

Study Abstract

Presentation: The Power of National Service: Improving Children’s Literacy Outcomes
Presenters: Carrie Markovitz, Ph.D. and Marc W. Hernandez, Ph.D., University of Chicago; Sadie O’Connor, Reading & Math, Inc.

Reading Corps recruits, trains, places, and monitors AmeriCorps members that serve as tutors in school-based settings to implement research-based literacy activities and interventions for struggling readers in PreK through grade 3. As part of the Innovative Approaches to Literacy grant through the Department of Education, NORC at the University of Chicago, in partnership with Reading & Math, Inc., conducted a multi-state impact evaluation of the PreK and K-3 Reading Corps programs in Minnesota, Milwaukee, WI, and Miami, FL during the 2017-2018 school year. While prior independent evaluations have been conducted of the original Minnesota Reading Corps program, this multi-state evaluation assessed the impact of the Reading Corps program model on students in Minnesota, as well as two replication sites in Florida and Wisconsin. This presentation describes the findings from the impact evaluations of the Minnesota Reading Corps Program on Kindergarten through third grade (K-3) students in the state of Minnesota and the Wisconsin Reading Corps Program on Kindergarten and first grade (K-1) students in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In Minnesota and Wisconsin, NORC implemented a randomized controlled trial using a lottery system to randomly assign identified students to either a program (treatment) group, which immediately received Reading Corps tutoring, or a control group, which had to wait to receive tutoring.

Key questions guiding the Reading Corps impact evaluation study include:

What is the impact of Reading Corps on program participants compared to students who did not receive Reading Corps?
Does the impact vary by participant characteristics?

Office of Research and Evaluation

The Corporation for National and Community Service sponsors and supports scholarly research. Findings are used to identify effective strategies for national service, increase the evidence-base for its programs, and strengthen civic infrastructure and civic engagement in America. ORE builds, shares, and uses knowledge in multiple ways. Our CNCS webpages include ongoing and completed studies and evaluation resources. To find out more about research and evaluation at CNCS, check out our webpages.