Children Education
By Laura J. Colker, Ed.D.
Reading Is Fundamental
"When parents are involved in their children's education at home, they do better in school. And when parents are involved in school, children go farther in school and the schools they go to are better." -A New Generation of Evidence: The Family is Critical to Student Achievement. (Henderson & Berla, 1994)
As the above quote suggests, it is a well-established fact that parental involvement is linked to children's success at school. Thirty years of research"including the oft-cited studies by Joyce Epstein and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and Anne Henderson and colleagues at the Center for Law and Education"demonstrate the strong correlation between parental involvement and increased academic achievement. In fact, a home environment that encourages learning is more important to student achievement than the family's income, education level, or cultural background. (Henderson & Berla, 1994). In addition, Herbert Walberg found that family participation in education was actually twice as predictive of academic learning as family socioeconomic status. Kellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez, and Bloom (1993), in their book Home Environment and School Learning, summarize the phenomenon this way:
The socioeconomic level or cultural background of a home need not determine how well a child does at school. Parents from a variety of cultural backgrounds and with different levels of education, income, or occupational status can and do provide stimulating home environments that support and encourage the learning of their children. It is what parents do in the home rather than their status that is important. (p.145)
The positive results of parental involvement in their children's schooling include improved achievement, reduced absenteeism, improved behavior, and restored parental confidence in their children's schooling. (Institute for Responsive Education, 1993). Moreover, the earlier this involvement begins, the more profound the results and the longer lasting the effects. When families are involved in their children's education in positive ways, children achieve higher grades and test scores, complete more homework assignments, demonstrate more positive attitudes and behavior, graduate at higher rates, and have greater enrollment in higher education. Parental involvement with older children extends these benefits beyond schooling into later life and career decisions.
Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) support these findings. Three factors over which parents can exercise authority-student absenteeism, the variety of reading materials in the home, and excessive television watching-account for nearly 90 percent of the difference in the average state-by-state performance of eighth-graders' mathematics test scores among 37 states and the District of Columbia. In other words, most of the differences in achievement observed across states can be attributed to home practices. This means that families can improve their children's achievement in school by making sure their children attend school regularly, encouraging their children to read at home regularly, and turning off the TV (Barton & Coley, 1992).
Reading Is Fundamental
"When parents are involved in their children's education at home, they do better in school. And when parents are involved in school, children go farther in school and the schools they go to are better." -A New Generation of Evidence: The Family is Critical to Student Achievement. (Henderson & Berla, 1994)
As the above quote suggests, it is a well-established fact that parental involvement is linked to children's success at school. Thirty years of research"including the oft-cited studies by Joyce Epstein and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and Anne Henderson and colleagues at the Center for Law and Education"demonstrate the strong correlation between parental involvement and increased academic achievement. In fact, a home environment that encourages learning is more important to student achievement than the family's income, education level, or cultural background. (Henderson & Berla, 1994). In addition, Herbert Walberg found that family participation in education was actually twice as predictive of academic learning as family socioeconomic status. Kellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez, and Bloom (1993), in their book Home Environment and School Learning, summarize the phenomenon this way:
The socioeconomic level or cultural background of a home need not determine how well a child does at school. Parents from a variety of cultural backgrounds and with different levels of education, income, or occupational status can and do provide stimulating home environments that support and encourage the learning of their children. It is what parents do in the home rather than their status that is important. (p.145)
The positive results of parental involvement in their children's schooling include improved achievement, reduced absenteeism, improved behavior, and restored parental confidence in their children's schooling. (Institute for Responsive Education, 1993). Moreover, the earlier this involvement begins, the more profound the results and the longer lasting the effects. When families are involved in their children's education in positive ways, children achieve higher grades and test scores, complete more homework assignments, demonstrate more positive attitudes and behavior, graduate at higher rates, and have greater enrollment in higher education. Parental involvement with older children extends these benefits beyond schooling into later life and career decisions.
Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) support these findings. Three factors over which parents can exercise authority-student absenteeism, the variety of reading materials in the home, and excessive television watching-account for nearly 90 percent of the difference in the average state-by-state performance of eighth-graders' mathematics test scores among 37 states and the District of Columbia. In other words, most of the differences in achievement observed across states can be attributed to home practices. This means that families can improve their children's achievement in school by making sure their children attend school regularly, encouraging their children to read at home regularly, and turning off the TV (Barton & Coley, 1992).
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