Six Years Later: Effect of Family Involvement Training on the Language Skills of Children from Migrant Families.

Abstract

This six year follow-up study to the previously published quasi-experimental study on this group of children and their migrant families examines the effects of a parent involvement program on kindergarten children’s families. Parents in the original study participated in sessions available throughout their child’s kindergarten year that helped them engage their children in academic activi-ties linked to their children’s curriculum in school. These parent involvement sessions were implemented as one component of a Migrant Education Even Start family literacy program. The study was conducted at a rural Midwestern elementary school with 22 kindergarten children from families participating in the parent involvement training program, and 28 kindergarten children from families not participating. This longitudinal study first followed these children through the end of first grade. Findings indicated that by the end of first grade, children from families participating in the parent involvement training pro-gram scored significantly higher on language measures than children in the control group. Now researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Cen-ter have followed these children through 5th or 6th grade and have collected state reading assessment scaled scores. Results demonstrate that children in the treatment group again scored significantly higher than children in the con-trol group. This suggests that equipping migrant families with new abilities to nurture their children’s language skills leads to positive and lasting reading out-comes for their children.