Parent teaching, cumulative instability and school readiness for children attending Head Start preschool

ABSTRACT

This study investigated relations between parent teaching, cumulative instability/chaos and school readiness in a group of 130 children attending a Head Start preschool. Cumulative instability/chaos negatively predicted fall school readiness as well as spring school readiness. Parent teaching did not predict fall school readiness but did predict spring school readiness. Fall school readiness predicted spring school readiness, suggesting the possibility that this variable helped to carry the effect of cumulative instability/chaos, as measured in the fall of the preschool year, to spring school readiness. Fall school readiness mediated the relationship between fall cumulative instability and spring school readiness. Implications for intervention efforts are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Cumulative instability
• chaos
• school readiness
• parent teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dawn K. Kriebel, PhD is Professor and Program Director of Undergraduate Psychology at Immaculata University in suburban Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Kriebel teaches courses in child development, lifespan development, preprofessional internship, cultural psychology and statistics. Her research interests and publications focus on the cognitive and socio-emotional development of children at-risk, including low-income children, foster children and adoptive children.

Eleanor D. Brown, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at West Chester University, where she directs the Early Childhood Cognition and Emotions Lab (ECCEL). Dr. Brown is internationally recognized for her scholarship on children in poverty, as well as her research on arts programming. Her publications concern relations linking poverty-related instability, chaos, and stress to young children’s cognitive and social-emotional functioning, and early childhood interventions that may disrupt the strong predictive relationship between poverty and negative outcomes. Her recent research has highlighted the potential for preschool arts programming to advance children’s emotion regulation and school readiness.

Additional information

Funding

This research this research was partially supported by a West Chester University College of Arts and Sciences Support and Development Award (CASDA).