A New Approach to Defining and Measuring Family Engagement in Early Childhood Education Programs

Abstract

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Two-Thirds of all four-year-old children in the United States attend early childhood education (ECE) programs, and this number is expected to rise in the coming years (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). As ECE programs expand across the country, there is a growing recognition of the need to measure and improve quality across the diverse ECE landscape, including Head Start, state pre-kindergarten (prek), and community-based programs, to improve child outcomes. The major system that monitors center-based ECE programs in the United States is state-level Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). This paper explores how to maximize the effectiveness of QRIS for promoting child outcomes by improving the conceptualization and measurement of family engagement, which is one of the most common measures of quality within QRIS.Galvanized through the Race-to-the-Top Early Learning Challenge, QRIS attempt to improve the performance of individual programs by: (a) assessing ECE programs using a number of quality measures, (b) disseminating program ratings to the local public, and (c) offering improvement supports tied to programs' rating performance. The guiding framework behind QRIS is that top-rated programs represent higher levels of quality, which should mean that higher ratings are associated with greater gains in children's development and learning-a primary goal of early childhood Almost every state-level Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) in the country includes family engagement as an indicator of early childhood education quality. Yet, most QRIS measure family engagement using a uniform, narrow set of parent involvement activities at the center. We propose an alternative approach that emphasizes a range of direct services for parents, including: (1) parenting classes, (2) family support services, (3) social capital activities, and (4) human capital services. In our proposed rating systems, states would assess how well centers address the highest ranked needs of families and employ evidence-based practices across one or more of the center-selected direct parent service categories. We explore the feasibility of this approach through a qualitative study (n = 14 centers) and case examples. We discuss how this new rating system could be used to monitor quality and as a tool for program improvement to support child development.

Tender Shoots: Effects of a Preschool Shared Book Reading Preventive Intervention on Parent–Child Reading and Parents’ Involvement in the First Year of School

“…We reduced barriers to implementation by providing books, prompts within the books, and allowing parents plenty of opportunity to practice and internalize the targeted skills. Our approach is consistent with recommendations for parent programs by Sabol et al (2018). Sabol and colleagues suggest that building on human capital, reducing barriers to implementation, and giving parents opportunity to practice new skills enhance parent learning and behavior change even when contact time with professionals may be limited.…”

“…Providing parents with specific ways to support their children's learning may have broader benefits for parent involvement (Sabol et al, 2018). This collateral benefit has been illustrated in early childhood (DeLoatche et al, 2015).…”

"Are We in Agreement": Exploring Family Engagement in both Kindergarten Teachers’ Views and Recent Studies

“…2018) further emphasized parents' involvement in ECE as central to family engagement in a child's education. ECE centers implement many of the activities and strategies that pertain to family engagement in ECE (Sabol et al, 2018;Stefanski et al, 2016;Fantuzo et al, 2013;Ihmeidah and Oliemat, 2014). Family engagement in ECE does involve a wide range of aspects.…”

Preparing Families of Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder for Formal School Settings

“…Effective communication with families throughout the transition process can ameliorate such feelings by ensuring that they continue to understand what services and supports their children are receiving and how they can continue to support their children’s development. Teachers can use technology-based applications, communication notebooks, or a communication bulletin board to communicate with families (Sabol et al, 2018). Using a daily reporting system (i.e., communication notebook) can be particularly helpful for the families of young children with ASD because children are often learning to generalize skills across settings and parents play an integral role in helping children develop and generalize learned skills (Fenning & Butter, 2018).…”

“…Teachers may also develop classroom-specific social media forums to facilitate communication that allows families to connect (Sabol et al, 2018). This strategy allows families of children with ASD to build relationships within the classroom community and feel comfortable seeking support from other families (DEC, 2014; Starr et al, 2016).…”