“Getting Ready for School:” A Preliminary Evaluation of a Parent-Focused School-Readiness Program

Abstract

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to start school with fewer school readiness skills than their more advantaged peers. Emergent literacy and math skills play an important role in this gap. The family is essential in helping children build these skills, and the active involvement of families is crucial to the success of any intervention for young children. The Getting Ready for School (GRS) program is a parent-focused curriculum designed to help parents equip their children with the skills and enthusiasm necessary for learning when they start school. Parents meet in weekly workshops led by a trained facilitator and implement the curriculum at home with their children. The objective of this pilot study was to assess the promise of the GRS intervention in children participating in an urban Head Start program and to explore parents' responses to the intervention. We hypothesized that participation in GRS would improve school readiness in literacy and math skills, relative to participation in business-as-usual Head Start. Four Head Start classrooms (two randomly selected “intervention” and two “comparison” classrooms) participated in this study. Preliminary analyses suggest that GRS improves school readiness over and above a Head Start-as-usual experience. Implications for early childhood programs and policies are discussed.

Atypical auditory refractory periods in children from lower socio-economic status backgrounds: ERP evidence for a role of selective attention

“…An emerging goal of research on SES-related disparities is developing and assessing interventions that can reduce achievement gaps (Neville et al, 2013b;Noble et al, 2012). By identifying specific cognitive and neural systems that are most vulnerable to SES, as well as the mechanisms whereby these systems are altered, targeted programs can be developed that address these vulnerable systems.…”

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

“…GRS was originally designed as an intervention for parents in low and middle income countries to promote math and literacy skills through activities and bi-weekly parent workshops. A small randomized study with Head Start families demonstrated improvements in math skills over and above a Head Start-as-usual experience (Noble et al, 2012 ). GRS was subsequently enhanced by developing a classroom curriculum, adding activities to support children's self-regulation, and enhancing the parent component.…”

“…In this study, we explore these issues through the lens of Getting Ready for School (GRS), a novel early intervention targeting teachers and parents that supports the development of school readiness skills in preschool children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds (Noble et al, 2012 ; Marti et al, 2018 ). GRS is unique in its focus on all three of the main school readiness domains (early literacy, math, and self-regulation) and its equal emphasis on teachers and parents as agents of change.…”

Better Together? Multiplier and Spillover Effects in Two-Generation Initiatives

“…Researchers found that these program effects were largest when they trained parents as tutors; weaker effects were observed in programs that simply involved a “lighter touch,” such as encouraging parents and children to read together. The research literature on parent add-on programs is less developed for skills beyond literacy, but there is some evidence for positive effects of add-on programs that target children’s numeracy as well (Noble et al. 2012).…”