Utilizing Parental Homework as a Form of Parent Involvement in Early Care and Education

Abstract

Anovel way of promoting parent involvement was tested:  homework given to preschool parents, to readto their children at home using the dialogical reading method.  An earlier study showed that the homework ledto actual increases in children’s pre-literacy skills.  The current study investigated whether theparents in the experimental group actually changed their overall amount or typeof parent involvement with the program, as compared to control group parents.Results show that the preschool parental homework led to a shift in the contentof parent-teacher communications, so they became much more focused on theindividual child’s development.  The findingssuggest that parents can respond enthusiastically to homework from their childcare program, this homework can contribute to a shift in the nature ofteacher-parent communications, and can have significant impacts on childdevelopment.