Head Start Impact Study

Posted by on March 31, 2014

Study: Head Start accrues most benefits to kids with little home stimulation

Head Start preschool programs make a difference to children who get little academic stimulation at home, according to a new study from U.C. Irvine. For children who are rarely read to at home, or whose parents don’t work with them on letter and number recognition or word pronunciation, daily Head Start classes matter, the report found.

As debate continues as to whether this publicly-funded preschool for low-income children has lasting academic impacts, the new study found that one year of Head Start can make a “bigger difference for children from homes where parents provide less early academic stimulation,” according to a press statement.

Head Start is a federally-funded program and serves over one million children per year. U.C. Irvine researchers looked at interviews with Head Start mothers from the beginning and end of the school year.

The UC Irvine study results are published in the current issue of the journal “Child Development.”

Read more:
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2014/03/10/16043/study-head-start-accrues-most-benefits-to-kids-wit/

Study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12233/abstract


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