The Effect of After-School Programs on the Academic Achievement of Primary School Students

Esther L. Wallace

December 2001

Increasing academic achievement is the ultimate goal of education and educators. To this end, innovative curriculum and additional interventions are being used to deliver instruction. One of these interventions is extended day or after-school programs. The focus of this study was to examine the effect of five weeks of participation in an after-school program on the reading and math skills of first-grade students. Using a causal-comparative design, data was collected using teacher-made reading and math tests. The fifteen subjects in the treatment group (N= 6 boys and 9 girls) and the 15 subjects in the control group (N=7 boys and 8 girls) were an average age of 6. Students were enrolled in a predominately African-American inner-city school. The findings of the study indicate a statistically significant relationship between participation in a structured academic after-school program and increased academic achievement.