Summer Brings Lasting Reading Gains for Oakland Students through Springboard Collaborative
It was an early Friday morning in the summer, but Emerson Elementary School was filled with excitement and chatter! Students with decorative flower necklaces and big smiles walked happily into the school’s cafeteria to receive their certificates and backpacks filled with books. For many students, Emerson Elementary is not the school they attend during the year, but for five weeks over the summer, students and their families from throughout Oakland join Springboard-trained teachers to build lasting reading gains.
The students were a part of the Springboard Collaborative 2023 Summer Program with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Springboard Collaborative offers the opportunity for Oakland students to receive targeted programming that engages them and their families in tutoring and coaching to help to address summer learning loss. On this Friday, the students celebrated their graduation from the program. OUSD Program Manager, Muslimah Mohammed, recapped the celebration, “One of the positive incentives for the students in the summer is to do the best that they can in reading. If they reach their goal, they get a backpack filled with supplies. If they reach their stretch goal, they also get a tablet. All the students who participate get books. Today was our opportunity to recognize the students and to give them the learning bonuses.”
Springboard Collective utilizes the Family-Educator Learning Accelerator (FELA) approach to improve reading skills in students. This core methodology revolves around the student’s family, strategically placing the family as the educator and encouraging them to get involved in the student’s learning experience. Springboard understands and amplifies the shared responsibility of families and communities to uplift our children.
Teresa Arriaga, Executive Director of the West for Springboard Collaborative, shares, “Springboard Collaborative seeks to close the opportunity gap in literacy by closing the gap between home and school. We coach educators and families to work together to get kids reading on grade-level by the fourth grade.” The program is accelerated, lasting between five to ten weeks. It get teachers and families—experts on instruction and experts on their children respectively—on board to deliver sustainable literacy support.
In partnership with OUSD, Springboard Collaborative creates 11 hubs each summer, pulling from neighborhood schools and serving up to 1,500 students district wide. The Eat. Learn. Play. team visited the Emerson Elementary School hub this past summer as they hosted 11 teachers and approximately 150 students from OUSD elementary schools. Students attended the summer program for 2.5 hours a day, five days a week. During these allotted sessions, families were expected to attend four 45-minute sessions to support their student. The workshops covered four core reading skills: figure out the word (accuracy and decoding), understanding the story (comprehension), sound like a storyteller (fluency), and engage and enjoy (engagement and stamina). Teachers were coaches to the family members, providing guidance to understand the literacy needs of their students.
As part of the program, schools provided recommendations for which students and families to engage in the program, with students from under-resourced communities being prioritized. Oakland public schools targeted for the Summer 2023 Program had only 15% of students meeting or exceeding grade-level reading standards in 2022.
“One of the things that makes Springboard special is the family component. It’s important to involve families and empower families. It gives the parents a voice by making them authorities and experts on the learning of their children and brings them into the process in a very real way.”
Muslimah Mohammed, OUSD Program Manager
Springboard has proven that its methods work. In looking back on this past summer’s program, 82% of students increased their reading proficiency and 82% of families reported that their reading routines had improved. An impressive 96% of teachers reported that the workshops helped to build relationships with the students’ families. Mohammed says, “One of the things that makes Springboard special is the family component. It’s important to involve families and empower families. When Springboard is done right, that’s what it does. It gives the parents a voice by making them authorities and experts on the learning of their children and brings them into the process in a very real way.”
As a partner of Springboard Collaborative, Eat. Learn. Play. is thrilled to see the outstanding, impactful results of program participants, allowing us to utilize the summer months to extend and maximize literacy support for Oakland students. The partnership with Springboard advances the goals of our LEARN pillar: ensuring that all Oakland elementary school students have the support and resources to become proficient readers. In our recent Strategic Launch announcement, Eat. Learn. Play. doubled down on our commitment to support tutoring programs that yield consistent, substantial impacts on learning outcomes for Oakland students. Furthermore, we are committed to igniting a love of reading through our Eat. Learn. Play. Bus book distributions, Little Town Library program, and school library support. The partnership with Springboard Collaborative is an extension of our broader commitment to build stronger reading skills in Oakland students.
In paying a visit to Emerson Elementary, the Eat. Learn. Play. team saw engaged family members and students, heard beautiful stories read by students, and experienced first-hand Springboard’s commitment to literacy. We applaud the many ways Oakland families are showing up for their children’s futures. Reading opens doors, and we are proud to partner with Springboard Collaborative to impact Oakland students’ literacy journey.