The Research Center on Head Start Quality
was one of four centers funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services to address the impact of quality Head Start services. This
Research Center worked in partnership with three Head Start Programs:
Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity Head Start in Birmingham,
Alabama; Ninth District Opportunity Head Start in Gainesville, Georgia;
and Concerted Services Head Start in Waycross, Georgia. Among other
things, the Center conducted research to see if the quality of Head Start
classroom teaching practices was associated with children's preliteracy
skills and parent's functional literacy skills. The Assessment Profile
for Early Childhood Programs: Research Version was used to assess the
quality of classroom teaching practices. The children's preliteracy
skills were assessed using M-KIDS, and parents' functional literacy skills
were measured by the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults.
CSAL examined the relationship between the quality of classroom
teaching practices and urban/rural geographic locations. The initial
analysis indicated a statistically significant interaction for both
child and parent outcome measures. Follow-up analyses suggested
that, for families in rural areas, the children scored higher on the
preliteracy measure, and their parents scored higher on the functional
literacy measure when they were part of a high quality classroom as
opposed to a low quality classroom. This was a very significant finding
for Head Start. Since the early 1990's Head Start emphasized the
importance of family literacy in the delivery of their services. These
research findings indicated that Head Start programs with high quality
classrooms in rural areas provided learning experiences for children
and parents that had a significant impact on their literacy skills.
