Parent Involvement in the Getting Ready for School Intervention Is Associated With Changes in School Readiness Skills.

Maria Marti,Kelsey R Repka,Helena Duch,Emily C Merz,Cassie Landers,Kimberly G Noble

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00759

Abstract

The role of parent involvement in school readiness interventions is not well-understood. The Getting Ready for School (GRS) intervention is a novel program that has both home and school components and aims to improve early literacy, math, and self-regulatory skills in preschool children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families. In this study, we first examined associations between family characteristics and different indices of parent involvement in the GRS intervention. We then examined associations between parent involvement and change in children's school readiness skills over time. Participants were 133 preschool children attending Head Start and their parents who participated in the GRS intervention during the academic year 2014–2015. Parent involvement was operationalized as attendance to GRS events at the school, time spent at home doing GRS activities, and usage of digital program materials, which included a set of videos to support the implementation of parent-child activities at home. Although few family characteristics were significantly associated with parent involvement indices, there was a tendency for some markers of higher socioeconomic status to be linked with greater parent involvement. In addition, greater parent involvement in the GRS intervention was significantly associated with greater gains in children's early literacy, math, and self-regulatory skills. These findings suggest that parent involvement in comprehensive early interventions could be beneficial in terms of improving school readiness for preschoolers from disadvantaged families.

Highlights

Children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families tend to enter school behind their peers in terms of pre-academic and self-regulatory skills (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002; Noble et al, 2005)
We explore these issues through the lens of Getting Ready for School (GRS), a novel early intervention targeting teachers and parents that supports the development of school readiness skills in preschool children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds (Noble et al, 2012; Marti et al, 2018)
Out of the 92 parents that came to GRS events, 31% came to one event, 24% came to two events, 13% came to three events, 10% came to four events, and the remaining 14% came to five events or more

Summary

Introduction

Children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families tend to enter school behind their peers in terms of pre-academic and self-regulatory skills (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002; Noble et al, 2005). Parental participation remains a challenge for many programs (Patterson and Chamberlain, 1994) It is unclear how parents engage with different intervention components (e.g., in-person workshops, use of program materials at home) and whether or not these components are differentially associated with children’s school readiness outcomes. A longitudinal study that followed children from kindergarten to 5th grade showed that increased school-based parent involvement (e.g., attending parent–teacher conferences, participating in school activities, or volunteering in the classroom) predicted improved child literacy skills (Dearing et al, 2006). In Head Start families, parent involvement at home (e.g., self-reports of reading to the child or providing learning activities) was associated with positive growth in children’s attention, persistence, motivation to learn, and receptive vocabulary; and decreased problem behaviors (Fantuzzo et al, 2004)

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