Abstract
When they enter primary school children already vary significantly in their language skills, depending at least in part on their family’s social background. In particular, the home learning environment plays a significant role in children’s development. For that reason, early intervention programs have been developed to obviate learning difficulties and to promote health, children’s development, and educational equality. The family support program Chancenreich aims to encourage the interaction and relationship between parents and children through two different course formats. The present study examines the longitudinal effects of attending the Chancenreich program and different course formats on (a) parents attending further educational services for children after completing the program, (b) children’s vocabulary and level of grammar development at the age of 5 and (c) the children’s vocabulary development between the ages of 3 and 5. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between family characteristics and the attendance rates of different course formats of the Chancenreich program at the first and second point of measurement. The study follows a longitudinal design with two points of measurements (T1: Mage = 41 months, T2: Mage = 68 months), and a sample size of 121 parents and their children at T2 in the intervention group and 41 parents and their children in the comparison group. Findings indicate that attendance of the Chancenreich program’s courses is related to child and family characteristics and to later patterns of course participation after completing the program. Further, both children’s level of vocabulary skills (PPVT) at the age of 5 and their development between the ages of 3 and 5 benefit from the parental participation in parenting skills training at the age of 3. Implications and future research on the effectiveness of family support programs are discussed.
Highlights
Language development is an important milestone for young children, and is relevant for their cognitive and socio-emotional competencies in early childhood and for later school success (Hoff, 2013)
Language Development for Children Between the Ages of 3 and 5 we examined the effects of Chancenreich and the three different course formats on the development of children’s vocabulary skills between the ages of 3 and 5
Mastering language development is one of the major developmental milestones in early childhood; it plays a key role for the ability of children to interact with their social environment, and impacts their early and later academic success (Hoff, 2006)
Summary
Language development is an important milestone for young children, and is relevant for their cognitive and socio-emotional competencies in early childhood and for later school success (Hoff, 2013). The quality of the home learning environment (HLE) plays a major role in early development and later academic success (Melhuish et al, 2008; Rodriguez and Tamis-LeMonda, 2011; Skwarchuk et al, 2014; Tamis-LeMonda et al, 2017). Within the theoretical model of the HLE, researchers distinguish between structural characteristics, beliefs, and process quality, with process quality having a direct effect on children’s learning outcomes (Kluczniok et al, 2013). These findings have resulted in initiatives to increase the quality of families’ HLEs, creating early positive learning trajectories in order to prevent socially determined disparities in educational careers
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