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

The Fifth Dimension is an after-school computer club aimed at improvin g the literacy of English- and Spanish-speaking elementary school chil dren. Children who attended the club at least ten times during the 199 4-95 school year (treatment group) showed larger pretest-to-posttest g ains on tests of word problem comprehension than did non-participating children matched for grade, gender, school teacher, and language prof iciency (comparison group). The same effect was noted for both Spanish and English versions of the test, and under a variety of matching tec hniques. The superiority of the treatment group was still present when the children were retested after the summer in the fall of the next y ear. These results provide support for the hypothesis that experience in using computer software in the Fifth Dimension computer club produc es measurable, resilient, and sustained cognitive changes related to c hildren's literacy.