Process Assessment: Minnesota Reading Corps PreK Program
Author: Diaconis, Athena
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Reading Programs,State Programs,Tutoring,Enrichment,Preschool Education,Emergent Literacy,Program Effectiveness,Program Design,Program Administration,Program Evaluation,Observation,Semi Structured Interviews,Comparative Analysis,Tutors,Individual Characteristics,Coaching (Performance),Supervision

Minnesota Reading Corps is the largest AmeriCorps State program in the country. Its mission is to help every Minnesota child become a proficient reader by the end of third grade. To meet this goal, the Minnesota Reading Corps and its host organization, ServeMinnesota Action Network, engages a diverse group of AmeriCorps members to provide evidence-based literacy enrichment and tutoring services to preschool (PreK) students and at-risk Kindergarten through third grade (K-3) elementary school students. For the 2013-2014 school year, more than 1,100 AmeriCorps members implemented the Minnesota Reading Corps program in 712 schools or sites and 213 school districts across the state of Minnesota. This report, commissioned by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), describes the findings from a process assessment of a purposive sample of Minnesota Reading Corps PreK program sites and similar comparison preschool sites during the 2013-2014 school year. The sample of nine program sites and eight comparison sites were drawn from the representative sample of 25 Minnesota Reading Corps programs and 25 matched comparison sites selected for a quasi-experimental design (QED) outcome evaluation of the Minnesota Reading Corps PreK program. The goal of the outcome evaluation was to determine the effects of the Minnesota Reading Corps program on PreK students' emergent literacy skills, while the process assessment provides additional context for interpreting these findings. The PreK process assessment focused on three research questions, with a particular emphasis on understanding the implementation of research-based language and literacy practices in PreK classrooms and the role of AmeriCorps members in fostering emergent literacy skills: (1) How is the program achieving its immediate, intermediate, and long-term outcomes? How does the program's design and administration lead to the achievement of these target outcomes?; (2) Are there characteristics of AmeriCorps members that are particularly effective with service recipients (i.e., students)?; and (3) Which findings and lessons learned from the Minnesota Reading Corps can be applied to other models and/or programs? Are there characteristics that are suitable for similar reading tutoring programs to replicate? To explore the research questions associated with the process assessment, the evaluation team conducted observations of PreK classroom activity and conducted semi-structured interviews with AmeriCorps members, Internal Coaches, lead teachers, and school principals and directors at each participating site. The following are appended: (1) Classroom Language and Literacy Observation Tool; and (2) Glossary. [An additional appendix (Tables) is listed in the table of contents of this document, but is not included.]