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              Energy Express Evaluation 2019
      Back
                Energy Express is a West Virginia University Extension summer program that provides services to children living in rural West Virginia in either a five- or six-week format. In 2019, this program has served 79 low-income communities, with participants ranging from kindergarteners to incoming sixth graders. The focus of the program is to promote school success by setting both nutritional and scholastic goals for the program each year.

**Study Goals:**
The goal of the study is to determine the effectiveness of the Energy EExpress program with respect to helping the participants maintain or improve their scores on reading achievement tests over the summer. This result is important given the evidence that shows a particularly steep learning loss for low-income children as a result of out-of-school-time.

**Research Questions:**
The research questions are:

Do children that participate in Energy Express maintain their reading skills throughout the summer?
	Do children that participate in Energy Express increase their reading skills throughout the summer?
	To what extent do Energy Express's participating children increase their reading skill?
	Do children that do not participate in Energy Express experience the effects of the "summer slide" and thereby not maintain reading skills throughout the summer?**Findings:**
The evaluation found the following:

A comparison of the Broad Reading composite, which is an indicator of general achievement, showed a significant positive effect of the program. Of the children that participated, 68.7% maintained (4.2%) or improved (64.5%) their scores on reading achievement over the course of the Energy Express 2019 session. This rate of improvement is highly significant (p < 0.001).
	Children performed better in Letter/Word Recognition with 69.0% either maintaining (4.8%) or improving (64.3%) their scores.
	Children performed better in Passage Comprehension with 67.6% either maintaining (9.0%) or improving (58.6%).For more information, download:Full Report

      Full report
        Further information
    



      Program/Intervention
                        Energy Express AmeriCorps
  

      Implementing Organization
                        West Virginia University Research Corp
  

      Intermediary(s)
                        West Virginia Commission
  

      AmeriCorps Program(s)
            AmeriCorps State and National
  

      Age(s) Studied
            6-12 (Childhood)
  

      Outcome Category
            K-12 success
  

      Study Design(s)
            Quasi-experimental (QED)
  

      Level of Evidence
            Moderate
  

      Researcher/Evaluator
                        Ben Edmonds, Ph.D., Emeritus Faculty, Indiana University
  

      Published Year
                        2019
  

      Study Site Location (State)
            West Virginia Back to main content Sign up to hear about our latest news, events, and opportunities.
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