The Baseball & Academic Skills Instructional Course of the American Baseball Foundation Inc. redresses reading and math loss (last 15 BASIC programs have produced on average 2.4 months gain in reading and 3.8 months gain in math) among at-risk students, grades one through eight. The program’s methodology guarantees student enjoyment and physical fitness, as they rotate from an academic station to a sports or sports games station at set intervals. Students become part of “home teams” that teach team building in academics as well as sports. Studens learn sports in a safe environment that teaches cooperation and perseverance.
Post COVID BASIC summer programming has engendered these on average results for approximately 60 students per program:
2021 East - 6.8 months gain in math and 5.6 months in reading
2022 South - 4 months gain in reading and 3 months gain in math
2022 East - 4 months gain in math and 2 months gain in reading
In 2022 over 50% of the students in the East program were repeat students and seven ex-participants volunteered every day of the program, amassing over 800 hours of service to their younger counterparts.
Building on the new BASIC program in Shelby County in which almost all of the participants had to be recruited, the ABF will implement two programs in Central Alabama during June 2023. One program will be at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Center Point on the eastern side of Birmingham (host for three of the last four programs in that area) and the second a return to Indian Springs Baptist Church in Shelby County. The simultaneous programs run for twenty-two days in June, 6.5 hours per day in which the students rotate among stations of reading, math, sports, reading movement games and ABF STEM lessons related to sports.
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