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.