The Long Term Effectiveness of Parental Involvement in Reading: A Follow‐up to the Haringey Reading Project

Abstract

Summary. The Haringey Reading Project was a two‐year educational intervention, which sought, firstly, to increase the amount of parental help given to 6–8 year‐old children learning to read, and secondly, to evaluate the impact of that help on the children's reading performance. As reported previously, at the end of the project children who had taken part in the parent involvement exercise were reading better than comparable children who had acted as controls. No such improvement was apparent in children given extra reading help, on a small group basis, from a supplementary teacher in school. Three years after the end of the project, the children were tested in reading by the LEA, as part of their routine monitoring and screening exercise for children transferring from junior to secondary schools. Analysis of these data revealed that the beneficial effects on reading performance of having taken part in the parent involvement exercise were still clearly apparent three years later. Again, no clear pattern of benefit could be seen in the children who had received extra teacher help as part of the project.

Preventing failure at school

“…No comparable improvement was seen in the`extra teacher help' group. Hewison's (1988) carried out a follow-up to the original study and reported similar results. Children in the extra parental involvement group were still better at reading than children in the control groups, and children in the extra teacher help groups showed no such improvement.…”

A Review of the Relationship Among Parenting Practices, Parenting Styles, and Adolescent School Achievement

“…For example, researchers have found that higher levels of parent-initiated involvement, such as parent attendance of school activities, open-school nights, and parent-teacher conferences, are related positively to elementaryschool-aged children's school performance (e.g., Becker and Epstein, 1982;Stevenson and Baker, 1987). Moreover, studies with adolescents have found that parental assistance with homework is positively related to the amount of time adolescents spend on their homework (Hewison, 1988;Keith et al, 1986;Muller and Kerbow, 1993). Similarly, researchers have found a strong positive relationship between school-initiated parental involvement practices and children's school outcomes (see Greenwood and Hickman, 1991).…”

Feasibility of Building Bridges Between School and Homes in Developing ESL Literacy: The SPIRE Project

“…7, No. 9;2014 … I am very busy, but I will make it a point to read to her because she is very interested in storybooks that she brings home … I try to spend about 20 or 30 minutes … (P/Nurul) These children made remarkable progress and were reading independently or with minimal assistance from adults. They progressed from being dependent readers or even refusing to read, to independent readers.…”

“…7, No. 9;2014 A total of four follow-up meetings held throughout the project. During these meetings, a demonstration on how to read interactively was made, storybook reading experiences were shared and concerns were raised.…”

“…Materials for the teacher and project coordinator included Teacher's role in a literacy-based reading program (Tompkins, 2013); Involving parents/reading projects (Hewison, 2011;Tizard et al, 2011;Griffiths & Hamilton, 1984); Creating a print rich classroom environment (McGee & Richgels, 2011;Brewer, 2006); Guidelines for reading aloud/book sharing (Gunning, 1996;Combs, 1996;Trelease, 2006); Stages in reading Thompkins & McGee, 1993) and Home school communication (Billman & Sherman, 2002;Freeman et al, 2012).…”