SPARK Evaluation

Sixty children successfully completed AMHA’s SPARK Ohio four year old program and transitioned into kindergarten in the fall of 2019. In Ohio, all children are given the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) in their first three months of school. The KRA measures students’ knowledge and abilities four areas: social skills, mathematics, language & literacy and physical well-being. A score of 263 or above on the Language & Literacy domain is predictive of third grade reading success and beyond. When compared to non-SPARK peers, AMHA SPARK children scored higher in each domain and most notably there was a statistically significant difference on the Language & Literacy domain with AMHA SPARK participants having an average score of 262.1 compared to the non-SPARK average of 256.5.