COGNITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF PARTICIPATION IN A "FIFTH DIMENSION" AFTER-SCHOOL COMPUTER CLUB

The Fifth Dimension is an after-school computer club aimed at improving the literacy of English- and Spanish-speaking elementary school children. Children who attended the club at least ten times during the 1994-95 school year (treatment group) showed larger pretest-to-posttest gains on tests of word problem comprehension than did non-participating children matched for grade, gender, school teacher, and language proficiency (comparison group). The same effect was noted for both Spanish and English versions of the test, and under a variety of matching techniques. The superiority of the treatment group was still present when the children were retested after the summer in the fall of the next year. These results provide support for the hypothesis that experience in using computer software in the Fifth Dimension computer club produces measurable, resilient, and sustained cognitive changes related to children's literacy.