دوشنبه ۰۹ مهر ۰۳ | ۲۲:۲۲ ۱۱ بازديد
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations aresubjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Educati
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations a
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations arere adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendatio
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require ada
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in cmunication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations are
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
co
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations arentent, th
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, coo
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Educ
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
FAMILIES
Many factors impinge on academically stimulating qualities of the home
environment, which in turn may affect academic readiness and success of stu-
dents from preschool through college. This chapter examines some of the key
features of families and their behavior that appear to limit or improve chances
for student success.
FAMILY STRUCTURE
A recent report summarizes data on the demographic factors among
American families that appear to affect children’s educational outcomes (Barton
& Coley, 2007). According to this report, children from single-parent families
have a greater risk of poor academic achievement, more behavioral and psycho-
logical problems (including substance abuse), and an increased rate of having
children outside of marriage. All of these may also negatively affect academic
potential.
In 2004, a Kids Count report determined that 31% of children lived in single-
parent families in the United States, but rates of single-parent homes differ
according to ethnic and racial groups. Based on U.S. Census data, the Kids Count
report indicated that only 35% of African American children lived in two-parent
homes.
Poverty is another critical risk factor for poorer academic and life outcomes
among children. According to Barton and Coley (2007), “The United States has
the greatest inequality in the distribution of income of any developed nation—an
inequality that has been rising decade by decade” (p. 14). According to 2005 U.S.
Census data for the nation, the top income households had more than 14 times
more income than bottom-income households.
PARENTAL BEHAVIORS AND PRIOR LEARNING
Even more powerfully than demographic factors, parental behaviors appear
to influence children. Demography, nonetheless, sets the stage and affects both
parental behaviors and children’s development, particularly their learning prior
to entry into school, and especially in those key aspects of language acquisi-
tion that are prerequisites for learning to read. In turn, shortcomings in reading
ability translate to lower academic achievement. Children from lower-income
families receive significantly reduced exposure to rich vocabulary and less
positive verbal affirmation from family members. Mentioned earlier, Hart and
Risley (1995) conducted intensive, observational, in-home research on language
3
20
acquisition in the early life of children (birth to age 4). They estimated that by
the end of 4 years, the average child in a professional family hears about 45 mil-
lion words—nearly double the number of words that children in working-class
families hear (25 million) and more than 4 times the number of words, about 10
million, spoken to children in low-income families.
Though vocabulary differences between the groups were small at 12 to
14 months of age, by age 3 sharp differences emerged, which correlated with
parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Children from families receiving welfare
had vocabularies of about 500 words; children from middle/lower SES families
about 700; and children from families in higher socioeconomic brackets had
vocabularies of about 1,100 words, more than twice that of children from families
receiving welfare. Parents of higher SES, moreover, used “more different words,
more multi-clause sentences, more past and future verb tenses, more declara-
tives, and more questions of all kinds” (Hart & Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Entwisle
and Alexander (1993) also found that differences in children’s exposure to
vocabulary and elaborate use of language multiply further at ages 5 and 6, when
children enter school.
Children in poorer families are also less likely to have parents regularly read
to them than children in wealthier families (Barton & Coley, 2007). Sixty-two
percent of parents of 3-to-5-year-old children from the highest income quin-
tile read to their children every day. In the lowest income quintile, only 36%
of parents read to their 3-to-5-year-old child. Children in two-parent families
were more likely to have someone read to them regularly than were children
in single-parent homes (63% vs. 53%). Also, mothers with higher educational
attainment read to their children more often. Only 41% of mothers with less than
a high school diploma read to their child or children regularly, compared with
55% of mothers who are high school graduates, and 72% of mothers with college
degrees.
Sticht and James (1984) emphasize that children first develop vocabulary and
comprehension skills before they begin school by listening, particularly to their
parents. As they gain experience with written language between the 1st and 7th
grades, their reading ability gradually rises to the level of their listening ability.
Highly skilled listeners in kindergarten make faster reading progress in the
later grades, which leads to a growing ability gap between initially skilled and
unskilled readers.
This growing gap seen in reading skill levels reflects inequalities by race/
ethnicity and SES. Although in the United States there are numerically more
low-income Whites than similarly low-income African Americans and Hispanics,
minority groups have disproportionately higher rates of poverty. Although
policy research has increased in recent decades on these SES issues, far more
research has been conducted with African American families than with Latino
families. Wigfield and Asher (1984) offer their conclusive findings in the authori-
tative Handbook of Reading Research:
The problems of race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in
achievement have been at center stage in educational research for nearly
three decades. Research has clearly demonstrated that such differences
exist; black children experience more diffi culty with reading than white
21
children, and the discrepancy increases across the school years. Similarly,
children from lower SES homes perform less well than children from
middle-class homes, and here too the difference increases over age. (p.
423)
Not only do lower SES families offer fewer linguistic experiences and skills to
their children, they also evidence other behaviors that tend to impede children’s
early preschool development. For example, mothers of low-SES often demon-
strate weak problem-solving skills of their own, but nevertheless tend to take
over children’s experimentation with problem solving, a realization of a lack of
confi dence in their children’s abilities (Wigfield & Asher, 1984). In other studies,
low-income parents discouraged their children with negative feedback about
275,000 times, about 2.2 times the amount employed by parents with professional
jobs. These parents with greater incomes “gave their children more affirmative
feedback and responded to them more often each hour they were together” (Hart
& Risley, 1995, pp. 123–24). Parents with professional jobs encouraged their chil-
dren, by the time they reached age 4, with positive feedback 750,000 times, about
6 times as often as low-income parents did. Such parenting behaviors predicted
about 60% of the variation in vocabulary growth and language use of 3-year-
olds. Furthermore, low-SES parents tend to “view school as a distant, rather
formidable institution over which they have little control” (Wigfield & Asher,
1984, p. 429), an attitude very unlikely to help their children adopt an enthusi-
astic view of schooling. Behaviorally, too, children of low-income families are
“disadvantaged” because these children, upon entry into formal schooling, are
often “lacking the habits of conduct” expected, such as working independently
and attentively on a given task (Entwisle & Alexander, 1993, p. 405).
These factors stifl e prior learning and behavioral readiness for school and
result in “Matthew effects” of the academically poor getting poorer and the rich
getting richer (Walberg & Tsai, 1984). Ironically, although improved instruc-
tional programs may benefit all students, they may confer greater advantages on
those who are initially advantaged. For this reason, the first 6 years of life and
the “curriculum of the home” may be decisive influences on academic learning.
These effects appear pervasive in school learning, including the development of
reading comprehension and verbal literacy (Stanovich, 1986).
READING AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Along with some attitudinal and behavioral factors of prior learning in the
home, much of this chapter primarily focuses on the children’s developing
vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, because reading proficiency is the
most important goal in the early grades and because learning in most subjects
depends on reading skills. The National Assessment of Educational Progress
2007 Nation’s Report Card for reading shows, however, that only 33% of fourth
graders in the United States are at or above proficient in reading (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Among eighth graders in American public schools,
the percentage of proficient readers is similarly low, 31%, a rate which has not
changed since 1992. Millions of children who fall substantially behind in reading
in the early grades are unlikely to catch up without intensive intervention.
22
A lack of proficiency in reading skills leads to underachievement in other
subjects and early academic disengagement, which often magnifies over time
to the point of dropping out of high school. Conversely, a strong literacy foun-
dation in early childhood leads to high school graduation and post-secondary
schooling. At this time, too many children are not getting that foundation. Nearly
a million ninth graders will not earn a diploma in 4 years (Education Trust, 2007),
which means that about one in four students are not graduating from high school
on time. Among African American and Latino students, the high school gradua-
tion rate is significantly lower, as one third of them currently do not receive high
school diplomas. High school achievement is similarly low. The Nation’s Report
Card (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007) reports that in 2005, the U.S. 12th grade
reading achievement declined for all but the top performers, and less than one
quarter (23%) of the U.S. 12th graders perform at or above proficiency in math-
ematics. Only 35% of the nation’s 12th graders performed at or above the profi-
cient reading level in 2005.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Can developmental and early educational programs diminish growing
achievement gaps that begin in early childhood and increase as children enter
and proceed through school?1 An analysis of 48 published articles on early child-
hood interventions to improve home environments shows positive but small
(0.2) overall effects (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Izendoorn, & Bradley, 2005),
with randomized intervention studies showing a smaller average effect size of
0.13. Children of middle class parents benefited more from the programs than
those from poor families—the Matthew effect. One reason for limited program
effects overall is that the program sessions were usually limited in time and took
place over only a small fraction of the child’s life. Moreover, parents, particularly
those in poverty, may or may not be able to fulfill the program requirements.
Head Start is by far the largest and longest enduring early childhood pro-
gram. Intended to help children in poverty from birth to age five, it began in 1965
under President Johnson, providing grants to local public and private non-profit
and for-profit agencies to establish an array of services, including dental, optical,
mental, and physical health services, nutrition, and parental involvement and
education. Head Start now serves over 900,000 low-income children and their
families each year.
However, a 1985 synthesis of about 300 studies of Head Start and other early
childhood programs revealed that their moderate immediate effects on achieve-
ment and other cognitive tests faded within 2 to 3 years; that is, program stu-
dents did better on achievement tests than control-group students at the end of
the program, but the difference between the groups diminished to insignificance
(White, 1985). Since 1985, the programs attempted to improve by concentrating
on children’s academic readiness, and reviews since then have been slightly
more encouraging (Currie, 2001; Karoly et al., 1998).
1Since this book concerns Kindergarten through twelfth grade and because
preschool research has been difficult to conduct rigorously and the findings are
inconsistent and controversial, actionable recommendations are not offered in
this section though some tentative implications are discussed.
23
A recent large-scale study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) found that Head Start helps children make gains in cognitive
development that narrows the achievement gap. In May 2005, the first year find-
ings from the impact study—a Congressionally mandated study that requires
HHS to evaluate the impact of Head Start on the children and families it serves—
offered evidentiary support for Head Start. Based on a rigorous, randomized
experimental design, the study demonstrated that after less than one school year,
Head Start narrowed achievement gaps by 45% in pre-reading skills and by 28%
in pre-writing skills and positively impacted vocabulary skills as well. Head Start
apparently changed parent behavior, too, including increasing the frequency of
parents reading to their children.
Another rigorous, large-scale, random-assignment evaluation of Head Start
showed small positive effects on parental behavior and on children through age
3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2002). The particular Head Start project studied
was designed to enhance children’s development and health, strengthen family
and community partnerships, and to deliver new services to low-income families
with pregnant women, infants, or toddlers. The 17 project instances investigated
included 3,001 families and showed small, temporary effects.
AN EFFECTIVE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
So far, this chapter considered learning in the preschool years and parents’
contribution to an environment that stimulates learning, either through actions of
their own or in collaboration with family–child programs like Head Start. Unlike
other early childhood programs that emphasize “developmental appropriate-
ness,” self-esteem, and play, one program, the Chicago Child–Parent Centers
(CPC), directly teaches academic language and number skills, which concerns
one of the teaching factors not yet discussed—the quality, including content, of
instruction. This program emphasizes the acquisition of language and pre-math-
ematical experiences through teacher-directed, whole-class instruction, small-
group activities, and field trips for preschoolers, beginning at age 3.
The program also features intensive parental participation in each center’s
parent resource room. A landmark study of the CPC—the only long-term study
of an academically focused early learning program—demonstrated significant
long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of this academically-oriented family-sup-
port program (Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
Compared with matched control-group children, the 989 participating CPC
children showed higher cognitive skills at the beginning and end of kinder-
garten, and they maintained greater school achievement through the later grades.
Furthermore, by age 20, CPC graduates had substantially lower rates of special
education placement and grade retention than the control group, a 29% higher
rate of school completion, and a 33% lower rate of juvenile arrest. A cost–benefit
analysis showed that, at a per-child program cost of $6,730 for 18 months of part-
day services, the age-21 benefits per child totaled $47,759 in increased economic
well-being and reduced expenditures for remediation. Few education studies
have either followed children as long or calculated the costs and benefits of the
programs.
24
In CPC, program staff coordinate preschool activities with continuing
kindergarten services in neighborhood schools. The program involves parents
by engaging them in academically stimulating experiences for their children at
home, such as teaching them numbers, letters, and colors. The results support
productivity factors described in Chapter 2—namely, the home environment; the
quality of instruction, particularly its academic emphasis; the amount of instruc-
tion, since the children were given the advantage of extra academic time; and
contributed to their prior learning before starting school. Both the program and
the evaluation are unique.
Most programs lack the CPC features, and a review of evaluations (Karoly
et al., 1998) found that about half the early childhood intervention programs
showed no significant effect on achievement. As the CPC evaluation and others
illustrate, even though most early childhood programs show small and unsus-
tainable effects, a few programs may show substantial effects. The continuing
research task is to find the exemplary features of programs that work well, which
is easier said than done because such research is likely to require randomization
and long-term study.
K-12 SCHOOL-LEVEL PARENT PROGRAMS
In addition to the preschool programs discussed in the preceding section,
a variety of programs teach parents how to enhance the home environment in
ways that may benefit their children’s learning. Parents may be encouraged, for
example, to support their children’s academic, social, and emotional learning by
participating in parent education and home-visit programs beginning in the pre-
school years (Redding, 2000). The home visit model typically targets parents of
preschool age children, some as early as birth, and appears most effective when
combined with group meetings with other parents to reinforce a collegial and
non-threatening atmosphere of learning.
Conduct Effective School Parenting Programs
As described by Redding (2000), workshops and courses conducted by edu-
cators, psychologists, and pediatricians have the advantages of research-based
content and access to professional knowledge. The programs can teach parents
ways to improve the quality of cognitive stimulation and verbal interactions that
produce immediate, positive effects on their child’s intellectual development.
Home Visiting: Home visit programs enable focused, personalized coaching
in the natural setting of the home, though this feature may be labor-intensive
and expensive. Studies of early home visits have showed positive gains and
good economic returns; some studies are more rigorous than others. (See Daro
testimony and citations: http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/fi les/
Daro%20Early%20Support%20for%20Family%20Act%20testimony_1.pdf). Small-
group sessions led by trained parents in homes and schools are less expensive,
encourage parents’ attachment to the school, and allow them to share experi-
ences and assist one another.
According to Redding, the two most common challenges in parent education
are providing staff to organize and provide programs and attracting parents to
25
participate. To meet the challenge of staffing, Redding suggests partnering with
health and religious organizations that conduct childhood outreach programs.
To attract parents, programs could seek parental suggestions for programming;
engage parents in recruitment efforts; and use field-tested, proven models and
curricula.
Language Stimulation: Several kinds of parent–child interactions may
enhance a child’s success in school, including seriously conversing with the child
daily, reading with the child and talking about what is read, storytelling, and
letter writing (Redding, 2000). As parents increasingly lead busy lives, spending
several minutes a day in fully engaged private conversation with a child can
make an important difference. Furthermore, verbal interactions can reinforce
the affective bonds between parents and children, and affectionate communica-
tion affirms the joy of learning. Parents can reinforce their children’s attempts
to expand vocabulary use, while ridicule about faulty new vocabulary use can
cripple children’s natural learning and experimentation process. Museums,
libraries, zoos, historical sites, and cultural centers provide enriched contexts for
conversation and inquiry.
Rigorously Evaluate Parent Programs
Two bodies of research on the parents’ role emerged over recent decades
to answer questions regarding the impact of parent involvement. One strand
of research investigates the effects of parent’s naturally occurring involvement,
and another body of research evaluates the effects of interventions designed to
improve parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. In a recent review of non-
randomized research on parent involvement (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack,
2007), parents’ naturally occurring school-based involvement suggests fairly
consistent and occasionally substantial positive influences on achievement.
Definitive randomized research based on programs that seek to involve
parents in the schools and their children’s education is unavailable; however,
some longitudinal designs take into account children’s achievement progress.
These suggest that the value of school-based involvement—regardless of par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment—is not great. A research
synthesis of 41 studies that evaluated K–12 parent involvement programs con-
cluded that there is little empirical support for their efficacy to improve student
achievement, and changing parent, teacher, and student behavior (Mattingly,
Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriquez, & Kayzar, 2002). The synthesis found few quality
(randomized, experimental) studies of parent involvement programs, and most
studies lacked the necessary rigor to provide valid evidence of program effective-
ness. Thus, it seems possible that the programs may improve outcomes, but the
research may be insufficiently rigorous to prove their efficacy. Obviously, both
rigorous research and continuing evaluation of local programs is in order.
Communicate with Parents
Despite the lack of definitive research, parents may benefit from greater
knowledge of home practices that promote their children’s learning before and
26
after the school day. Students may also benefi t from communication between
their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions. Students appear to
show higher levels of achievement when parents and teachers understand each
other’s expectations and communicate regularly about the child’s learning habits,
attitudes towards school, social interactions, and academic progress (Henderson
& Mapp, 2002).
Schools that provide incentives or recognition for teachers to maintain close
connections with parents tend to sustain a quality, disciplined, educational envi-
ronment. Redding (2000) recommends a variety of communication strategies:
• parent–teacher–student conferences that stimulate positive and construc-
tive feedback on student work (such as through a portfolio) with the
structure of a meeting agenda
• report cards (daily, monthly, or quarterly) that include written two-way
communication
• newsletters with contributions by parents
• open door parent–teacher conferences at designated times, such as 30
minutes before school each morning
• e-mails to parents or general listserve bulletins
Redding affirms observations made by sociologist James S. Coleman: When
the families of children in a school associate with one another, social capital is
increased; children are watched over by a larger number of caring adults; and
parents discuss standards, norms, and the experiences of child rearing. Children
may benefit when the adults around them share basic values about child rearing,
often communicate with one another, and give their children consistent support
and guidance aligned with thoughtfully defined values.
Thus, eminent authorities and some research suggest that educators can
reach out to parents to encourage them to stimulate the development of their
children’s academic achievement. A variety of programs discussed in this
chapter provide insights into the planning and conduct of new programs.
CLASSROOMS
A learning element discussed in Chapter 2 central to classroom learning is the
quality of the instructional experience as provided by and managed by teachers.
Simply put, research shows that the methods of instruction that teachers employ,
as well as the content of the curriculum they teach, are key factors affecting
learning in K–12 classrooms. Teachers who provide good instruction also make
use of several chief factors that affect learning: prior learning, coordinating
content across grade levels, time spent on learning, motivation, and classroom
morale.
With these learning factors in mind, this chapter focuses on the teaching of
reading (and writing and speaking), second language acquisition, mathematics,
and science. Many citizens—legislators, parents, and educators—long believed
that these subjects should be given special emphasis in education. The con-
sensus on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations areauthorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations areation, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations areperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations areoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations are
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations are on the importance of these topics prompted the International Bureau of
Education, a division of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to ask me to commission and edit a series of booklets,
on educational practices, addressing them. These booklets, all written by eminent
authorities, were distributed worldwide; the recommendations in this chapter
derive from several volumes in the series.1
GENERAL PRACTICES
Students learn best in a supportive classroom climate that offers coherent
content, thoughtful discourse, practice and application activities, strategy
teaching, cooperative learning, goal-oriented assessment, and expectations for
high achievement.2 The principles of effective practices presented in this sec-
tion serve as a guide for developing successful teaching methods, though they
require adaptation to local context, subject area, grade level, and type of student
1The recommendations are
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