Only 35 percent of fourth-grade students performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level on the reading assessment in 2019. And despite billions invested in classroom intervention, fourth-grade literacy rates in America have hardly budged in 25 years.
Springboard Collaborative helps teachers and family members become reading coaches to support students to reach their reading goals. Springboard’s methodology, called Family-Educator Learning Accelerators (FELAs), is a five- to 10-week cycle during which families and educators team up to help students make up to a four-month reading gain. In 2021, Springboard reached 16,000 students nationwide.
With in-person programming paused during Covid, Springboard created a train-the-trainer solution, called Springboard Learning Accelerator (SLA), which they implemented virtually as a way to give schools a more flexible, lower-cost solution to effective family engagement.
To ensure SLA still led to impact, Springboard commissioned an external study. The study, which was national in scope, showed statistically significant reading growth across both program types. Participants in the traditional program averaged 3.1 months of reading growth in summer 2021, while participants in the SLA program achieved a comparably impressive 2.3-month reading gain during the same five-week period, essentially achieving 74 percent of the impact at 30 percent of the cost.
When the pandemic first closed schools, Overdeck Family Foundation provided Springboard flexible and fast capital that allowed them to create the SLA model and add virtual offerings to their flagship model. Our funding also supported Springboard in building internal data and research capacity, enabling them to better understand and communicate the impact of both in-person and virtual models and attract more funding to scale.
Enhancing each stage of childhood learning, from birth to high school.
Overdeck Family Foundation focuses exclusively on education, providing funding across four focus areas that encompass the whole child from birth through high school both inside and outside the classroom.