Abstract
Parent involvement has long been considered a key component of early childhood programs. Yet efforts to engage parents have waned in recent years when policy and research support have focused on promoting children’s school readiness skills with few resources devoted to family support services. This chapter illustrates the central role that parental involvement and engagement plays in promoting the lasting benefits of high-quality early education. We describe the Child-Parent Center (CPC) program and its emphasis on facilitating productive family engagement across the early childhood years (ages 3–9). In addition to prescribing specific strategies designed to involve parents in their children’s education as well as for their own personal and career development, CPC creates school infrastructure supports (e.g., small class, resource centers) to sustain family engagement and align home-based and school-based learning. We describe the positive impact of the CPC program on parent involvement in their child’s school, parent support for their child’s learning at home, and parent expectations for child academic success. Parental involvement in children’s learning is not only a key element of effective early education, but, as many studies have shown, it is a primary mechanism through which long-term benefits are achieved. We also review longitudinal research that documents the long-term child benefits of parental involvement and family engagement in the CPC model, including educational attainment, economic well-being, and health and well-being more generally.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter the terms parent involvement and parent engagement are used interchangeably.
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Reynolds, A.J., Lee, S., Eales, L., Varshney, N., Smerillo, N. (2022). Parental Involvement and Engagement in Early Education Contribute to Children’s Success and Well-Being. In: Bierman, K.L., Sheridan, S.M. (eds) Family-School Partnerships During the Early School Years. Research on Family-School Partnerships. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74617-9_6
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