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What We Do‎ > ‎Migrant Programs‎ > ‎

Reading Program Outcome Report (2009)

The goal of the Migrant Reading Program is to increase the reading, cognitive, and motor skills of pre-kindergarten children, as well as to provide reading opportunities to children over age five. Volunteers met at two local migrant camps twice weekly to read to children or engage the children in reading to them. It was anticipated that children would start developing or increasing their reading and listening skills. Most importantly, pre- and post-tests would indicate 100% of children aged 0 to 5 demonstrated improvement in pre-kindergarten reading skills.

The Migrant Reading Program launched in May 2009 and volunteers met with children twice per week through August. The reading program involved 40 children of all ages who participated in 346 reading encounters. Volunteer
readers over the course of the program totaled 28.

A pre- and post-test was administered to all fifteen children in the targeted age group. The tests assessed motor and cognitive skills for each of five different age groups. Tests were designed for children ages 6-12 months, 12-18 months, 18-24 months, 24-36 months, and 3 to 5 years. Within each age range, the tests identified motor and cognitive skills that the child should be achieving. The pre- and post-tests were designed by Reach Out & Read National Organization. After administering the post-test to all fifteen children, significant improvement was demonstrated within this target age group. Please see chart below:


Pre-test (May 09) Post-test (Aug 09)


   Pre-Test (May 2009)
 Post-Test (August 2009)
 # of developmental skills* demonstrated
 Total Number of Children
 Total Number of Children
 2 or less
 1  
 2-3  14  
 5-6    6
 7-8    9


*Developmental skills for children tested include the following motor skills: learns to handle paper pages, goes back and forth in books to find favorite pictures, competent book handling, turns paper pages one at a time. Cognitive skills: recites whole phrases/stories, coordinates text with picture, protests when adult gets a word wrong in a familiar story, reads familiar books to self, listens to longer stories, can retell familiar story, understands what text is, moves finger along text, “writes” name, moves toward letter recognition.