Yerwood Educational Summer Camp
Closing the Achievement Gap one Child at a Time Y.e.s. Camp builds academic skills
“Summer Camp is taken to a new level at the Yerwood Center–math, science, reading,” said Stamford Mayor Mike Pavia recently on a tour of the Center.
This past summer 357 children entering grades K-6 benefited from Yerwood’s 8-week YES (Yerwood Educational Summer) Camp in July and August. “YES Camp focuses on building the academic skills of our students. Reading and math are critical components of the program. We have to use the summer to help our students succeed at school”, said Yerwood CEO, Eugene Campbell.
Research indicates that low-income school kids lose an average of two months of academic performance over the summer. The achievement gap is being largely attributed to this factor.
A pilot Evaluation Program conducted at the Yerwood Center this summer on 28 YES Camp 3rd graders recorded time spent on academic instruction and activities, and measured the impact of YES programming. During the 8-week summer program, students in the pilot initiative each received 60 hours of group instruction, spent 30 hours on “fun” academic activities, 14 hours reading with peers, and 9 hours engaged in online academic enrichment programming. Diagnostic Math and Reading assessments of pilot program students demonstrated an average 8% increase in performance.
“Yerwood is committed to developing and delivering outcome-based programming,” said Mr. Campbell. “We can see from this study that our students are able to continue to learn and improve academically during the summer. We want to position them ahead of their peers come the start of the new school year.”
Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor to the YES program, this summer Yerwood was able to provide each camper with their own set of 4 scholastic books. The scholastic packet included age appropriate reading and math materials and activities for children to complete at home, and was designed to encourage the participation of parents and caregivers. Yerwood programs place a priority on increased involvement of parents and families in the education of their children.
But YES Camp isn’t just about academic performance. Students benefit from 120 hours of interactions with peers and 120 hours of interactions with adults. All students in the pilot Evaluation Program demonstrated a steady improvement in both social skills and motivation over the course of the summer. English as a Second Language (ESL) students showed the most significant gains in these areas.
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