Family involvement in school and low-income children's literacy: Longitudinal associations between and within families.

Abstract

Longitudinal data from kindergarten to 5th grade on both family involvement in school and children's literacy performance were examined for an ethnically diverse, low-income sample (N ϭ 281). Within families, increased school involvement predicted improved child literacy. In addition, although there was an achievement gap in average literacy performance between children of more and less educated mothers if family involvement levels were low, this gap was nonexistent if family involvement levels were high. These results add to existing evidence on the value of family involvement in school by demonstrating that increased involvement between kindergarten and 5th grade is associated with increased literacy performance and that high levels of school involvement may have added reward for low-income children with the added risk of low parent education. As such, these results support arguments that family involvement in school should be a central aim of practice and policy solutions to the achievement gap between lower and higher income children.

Family-Related Antecedents of Early Adolescent Immigrants’ Psychological and Sociocultural School Adjustment in Germany

“…It has been shown that parental school involvement can actually compensate for disadvantages children may experience in their educational career, which are rooted in demographic differences (Dearing, Kreider, Simpkins, & Weiss, 2006). Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) propose three main types of involvement in their multidimensional conceptualization of parental school involvement, namely behavioral, cognitive-intellectual, and personal involvement.…”

Making the difference with active parenting; forming educational partnerships between parents and schools

“…For instance, the linguistic development of primary school pupils depends strongly on the language environment at home (cf. Leseman and De Jong 1998;Dearing et al 2004Dearing et al , 2006Lynch 2009;Merlo et al 2007). This relates not only to differences in the parents' level of education but also to the number of different words and the complexity of sentences the children hear (cf.…”

Big Lift Participation and School Entry Indicators: Findings for the 2016–2017 Kindergarten Class

“…Finally, engaging families in their children's schooling is an additional strategy to support children's third-grade reading proficiency. Some research demonstrates that parents' involvement in their children's learning-including attendance at school events and home reading practices-is positively related to young children's literacy development (Dearing et al, 2006;Rodriguez and TamisLeMonda, 2011). Parent engagement programs that foster parents' abilities to support children's learning may have the potential to promote children's early reading skills (Walker, Gooze, and Torres, 2014).…”