Kirstie Cooper

• Address risk factors associated with children’s lack of readiness and poor home-school connections
•
4 sessions, 2 hours per week
•
Universal, delivered to parents through schools
• Aims: 1. Improve children’s school readiness
2. Prevent conduct problems
3. Prevent academic underachievement
4. Enhance home-school links

Child-directed play : Strengthening children’s social, emotional, and cognitive skills
Emotion coaching to build emotional expression
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Building children’s self-esteem and creativity
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Teaching children to problem-solve
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Building children’s language skills

Encouraging social, emotional, academic and problem solving skills through interactive reading
Building children’s self-esteem and self-confidence in their reading ability
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Having fun with books
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Letting the child be the storyteller
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Using the Reading With CARE building blocks

C
A
R
E
Commenting and describing
Asking open-ended questions
Responding with encouragement
Expanding on what the child says

To establish:
 A battery of effective measures to assess children’s school readiness

The effectiveness of the new Programme in improving children’s school readiness

Any difficulties or barriers in implementing the programme

• 10 schools in North Wales
• Schools allocated to Intervention and waiting-list
Control on a ‘first come first serve’ basis
• Two staff at each school received training
• Teachers recruited groups of up to 12 parents with children aged 3-5 years
• Intervention = 37 Control = 16

• Groups run during school time (AM/PM)
• 2 hours per week for 4 weeks
• Weekly supervision session with Prof. Hutchings
• Three home visits to families (1 hour each)
• Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, direct observation, focus group

Personal Data and Health Questionnaire
(PDHQ; Hutchings, 1996)
Child age
Primary caregiver age
Mean
46 months
33 years
Primary caregivers age when first child born
Primary caregivers age leaving school
25 years
17 years

Child gender
Caregiver gender
Biological parent
Married / living together
Very low income
State benefits
%
52% boys
98% females
100%
81%
36%
25%

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
(SDQ; Goodman, 1997)
• Parent report questionnaire
• 5 scales: emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems, and prosocial behaviour
• Scores for each scale, total difficulties and impact

Total impact

Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory
(ECBI; Eyberg & Ross, 1978; Eyberg, 1980)
• 36-item parent report measure
• 7-point Intensity, measuring frequency of behaviours
•
Yes-No Problem, identifies whether parent perceives the behaviour to be a problem.

Total problems

Play and Reading Observation Tool
(PAROT)
• Direct Observation – 30 minutes
• Part 1 – Child-directed play
15 minutes of observing the unstructured play between the primary caregiver and child.
• Part 2 – Interactive Reading
15 minutes of observing the primary caregiver and child reading together.
• One of three bilingual books used at each time point

Parent emotion coaching

Parent labelled praise

Child positive behaviours

Parent critical statements

Parent open-ended questions

Qualitative/Quantitative Data
Focus group
• e.g. “What effect do you feel this programme has had on the relationship between the parents and your school?”
Group Leader Evaluation / Parent Evaluation
• Self-report questionnaire, rate on 5/6point Likert scale
Parent Semi-structured Interview
• e.g. “Has the programme had an effect on the relationship between you as a parent and the school?”

• Mean number of sessions attended = 3
• 50% of parents attended all 4 sessions
• 90% of parents attended at least 2 sessions
• How likely are you to run the programme again at your school in the future?
Very likely = 4 Likely = 3

• Supply cover for teacher (£80 - £300 pw)
• Refreshments etc. (£4 per week)
• Room preparation time = 15/30/60 mins
• Session preparation time = 30/60/90 mins
• Group time = 2 hrs, supervision = 2 hrs
• Catch-up sessions = 0/30/60 mins
• Telephone calls = 20/30 mins

psp880@bangor.ac.uk