On average, new students enter our program reading 1.54 years below their expected grade level. Many students who join our program in 2nd or 3rd grade still struggle to read kindergarten level text.

Due to a variety of factors, students are often passed from one grade to the next without necessarily acquiring all of the functional and fundamental skills they will need in the future. The result is a widening achievement gap with lifelong consequences.

Bayside’s Academic Club reduces literacy gaps by 41% in the students’ first year using our student-centered, data-driven model. Students who continue in our program for an additional year or more either eliminate their initial literacy gaps all-together or reduce remaining gaps by an average of an additional 60%.

Check out some student highlights below for more details.

We know that every student is unique. Each learner has their own strengths, challenges, interests, and experiences. All of these factors significantly impact a student’s academic performance as well as attitude toward reading. That’s why our student-centered, data-driven model leverages the insights from students, families, and teachers to guide and support student learning.

Our Academic Club team works closely with students, their families, and school staff to understand the various needs and potential of each student. We also tailor our instruction and the learning environment according to the specific students in our class. As a result, our students become engaged participants in their own achievement, meet their own academic goals, and even help their peers to do the same.

Student progress is monitored and assessed through a process of thoughtful data-collection. Literacy proficiency is measured by independent guided reading level, phonemic awareness, broad-scope comprehension, and reading fluency. Due to time constraints and large class sizes, many schools only evaluate a few of these factors a handful of times throughout the school year. Academic Club students are assessed in greater detail and more frequently than most students. Additionally, data from their assessments have a direct, real-time impact on student instruction in our classes.

Spring of 2020 marked the beginning of one of the most challenging periods of time that students have faced nationwide. During distance learning, new obstacles to student achievement were erected, old inequities were exacerbated, and it may be several years before the full educational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is known.

Our team was quick to prioritize quality communication with students and their families early in the pandemic. As a result, families enrolled in the Academic Club had easy access to a wide variety of critical services vital to supporting student success and wellbeing.

Despite our program operating exclusively online last year, new Academic Club students reduced their initial literacy gaps by 22% and returning students closed remaining literacy gaps by an additional 44% over a 10 month period. We are so proud of our students and the efforts that they made alongside their families during this exceptionally difficult year!