Enhancing Academic Achievement in a Hispanic Immigrant Community: The Role of Reading in Academic Failure and Mental Health

Abstract

This field project examines Camp Sharigan, a group-centered approach to reducing academic failure. This study examines the program's benefit to children of Mexican descent from an inner-city immigrant neighborhood. The treatment group improved significantly more than the control group in all the three areas tested: spelling, reading, and sight words. Follow-up testing one year later indicated that the Camp Sharigan students continued to perform better in spelling and sight words. The findings indicate that the Camp Sharigan intervention may be more effective than one-to-one tutoring or classroom-style interventions.

Prevention groups: Today and tomorrow.

“…The learning center task teaches the information or new skills needed. With instructive interaction, skills are learned through group interaction and working together to complete a task as a group (Clanton Harpine & Reid, 2009). Prevention group interventions should strive to involve group participants in the learning process, not just as listeners in a group, but as active seekers of new information and new skills (O'Brian Caughy, Murray Nettles, & O' Campo, 2008).…”