An Evaluation of the Jeffco Summer of Early Literacy (JSEL) Program

The Jeffco Summer of Early Literacy (JSEL) program is a six-week summer school program for elementary school students in Jefferson County, Colorado. The impact evaluation compared K-3 students who participated in JSEL to similar students from the Jefferson County School District who did not participate. The study examined whether JSEL participants made greater progress in their reading proficiency than similar non-participants, and if there was a difference depending on the number of years students participated. An implementation evaluation was also conducted in the summer of 2014 by Jeffco Public Schools to assess the fidelity of the program and identify areas for improvement. The study found that:

• Looking at data pooled from three years, JSEL participants in K-3 made greater progress in their reading proficiency than non-participants after one year of participation, with a difference equivalent to moving from the 50th to 54th percentile on the DIBELS Next assessment (effect size 0.10, p.<0.05).
• There was also a statistically significant effect for participation in multiple years of JSEL, indicating increased participation was associated with higher test scores. For students who participated in three years of JSEL, this was the equivalent of moving from the 50th to the 61st percentile.