Reading Partners is a national literacy nonprofit that partners with under-resourced schools and engages community volunteers as tutors. Trained volunteers work one-on-one with students for 45 minutes twice a week, following a structured, research-based curriculum.
 
Study Goals
The goal of this study is to deepen the organization’s understanding of the quality of the Reading Partners AmeriCorps service experience and its effects on the civic engagement and educational and career pathways of their AmeriCorps and VISTA alumni. 
 
Research Questions
The research questions were:
  1. What outcomes do Reading Partners AmeriCorps alumni attribute to their Reading Partners experience? Do these alumni perceive that serving as a Reading Partners AmeriCorps member helped them develop professional and interpersonal skills or influenced or change their career and/or academic pathways?
    1. In what ways, if any, do perceived member outcomes vary by member characteristics, including age, race/ethnicity, educational background, years of service with Reading Partners, role with Reading Partners, geographic region where they served, prior service with another AmeriCorps program, cohort year, or early vs. late cohorts?
  2. Controlling for other factors, do Reading Partners AmeriCorps alumni demonstrate stronger professional and interpersonal skills and/or greater levels of civic engagement than similarly situated members of the national population?
 
Findings
The evaluation found the following:
  • Almost all (87 percent) Reading Partners AmeriCorps alumni were satisfied with their Reading Partners service experience and were more likely to report their service as a satisfying or very satisfying than were AmeriCorps alumni who participated in the 2015 CNCS study.
  • A majority (>60 percent) of alumni agreed that their Reading Partners AmeriCorps service experience caused them to re-examine their beliefs about themselves or about other people (65 percent); about two-thirds reported that they did things during their service year(s) that they never thought they could do.
  • At least 90 percent of alumni agreed that their Reading Partners AmeriCorps service experience helped them feel as though they made a contribution to the community where they served, and that they made a difference in the life of at least one person (95 percent); Reading Partners alumni were more likely to agree with these statements than were AmeriCorps alumni who participated in the 2015 CNCS study.
  • At least 80 percent of alumni agreed that their service experience helped them gain an understanding of the community where they served and exposed them to new ideas and ways of seeing the world.
  • Most (>50 percent) Reading Partners AmeriCorps alumni said that their service experience helped them figure out their next steps in terms of their career and professional goals; slightly more than half said the same about their educational goals.
You can view Reading Partners Effect reports on Influencing Civic Engagement and Influencing Career Pathways on their Evidence Exchange pages. 

Full report

Full Report
Reading Partners: Alumni Study

Further information

Program/Intervention
AmeriCorps Member Experiences
Implementing Organization
Reading Partners
Intermediary(s)

Reading Partners

AmeriCorps Program(s)
AmeriCorps State and National
Age(s) Studied
18-25 (Young adult)
26-55 (Adult)
55+ (Older adult)
Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
Rural
Suburban
Urban
Low-income
Outcome Category
Capacity Building
Operational, management, scaling, sustainability
Benefit to national service members/volunteers
Study Type(s)
Outcomes
Study Design(s)
Non-experimental
Level of Evidence
Moderate
Researcher/Evaluator
Policy Studies Associates
Published Year
2019
Study Site Location (State)
California
Colorado
District of Columbia
Maryland
Michigan
New York
South Carolina
Washington