![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
The task of this paper is to explore how lessons from the research on family intervention programs can be used to improve family literacy programs. Research in the following areas is discussed:
The paper then offers suggestions for improving family literacy programs.
There is little evidence from these reviews that preschool programs have large, direct effects upon parents or that early parent effects mediate later effects on children. This makes sense since few early childhood education programs provide intensive services for parents. Further, Karweit's review (1994) concluded that while preschool programs help, preschool programs alone are not enough to ameliorate the effects of poverty.
There are two distinct and relevant literatures in this area: (1) adult education/literacy programs such as federally funded adult basic education, adult secondary education, and English as a second language programs, and (2) job training and welfare-to-work programs.
Most reviews of adult basic education (ABE) programs have concluded that education and training programs have not been able to greatly increase adults' literacy skills or job opportunities (Datta, 1992; Duffy, 1992; Mikulecky, 1992). Adult basic and secondary education programs have high dropout rates and low levels of intensity, making it difficult to see how they can be expected to lead to positive effects (Moore & Stavrianos, 1994). Even when these programs do have significant effects on attainment of a General Educational Development (GED) diploma, the literature seems to indicate that having a GED credential does not relate positively to enhanced skill levels, and is not the economic equivalent of a high school diploma (Murnane & Willett, 1993; Cameron & Heckman, 1993). Recent national studies provide some evidence about potentially effective adult education practices:
For the past 30 years the federal government has targeted assistance to the welfare population so that they can find work and end their dependency on welfare. Fischer and Cordray (1995) cite as examples President Bill Clinton's 1994 Work and Responsibility Act, the JOBS program of the Family Support Act of 1988, OBRA and TEFRA in 1981 and 1982, Jimmy Carter's Program for Better Jobs and Income in 1977, Richard Nixon's Family Assistance Plan in 1969, the Work Experience and Training Projects in 1964, and the Community Work and Training Program in 1962. Three basic approaches have been used and studied through these and other efforts: (1) the "basic education" approach in which the focus is on provision of education and training, with the hope of building sufficient skills in order that the participant can qualify for and find employment; (2) the "job search" approach which focuses primarily on finding employment; and (3) vocational training and on-the-job training (Gueron & Pauly, 1991).
The most recent and most comprehensive analysis of the effects of job training and welfare-to-work programs (Fischer & Cordray, 1995) reviewed the findings from 65 major evaluations and concluded that job training and search programs have small but real effects on employment, AFDC receipt, and income. The impacts are about a 3 to 5 percentage point difference in employment rate (33 percent in the treatment group vs. 30 percent in the control group) and in AFDC rate (73 percent vs. 71 percent), about a 13 percent-19 percent increase in earnings ($50-$135 per quarter) and a 3 percent to 9 percent decrease in AFDC grants ($50 to $100 per quarter). In addition to these overall findings, the reviewers concluded that:
Perhaps significant for those interested in improving family literacy programs, the reviewers noted that the findings on small effects are not surprising, especially since job training and welfare-to-work interventions address only a few of the many problems faced by the welfare population.
Parenting education is an integral component of most family intervention programs. The underlying assumptions are that increased knowledge will result in positive changes in parental attitudes toward and behavior with children, and that those changes, in turn, will improve outcomes for children. Of course, these are largely untested assumptions. While there is some evidence that parenting education can produce positive changes in parental attitudes and behavior, there is little evidence of the hoped-for link between changes in parents' attitudes and the actual development of their children. In addition, our understanding of what kinds of parent education are most effective is clouded by the variety of approaches and the confounding effects of differences in target populations, treatment intensity, and the background and training of providers as well as the additive effects of other program components that may accompany parenting education.
Several rigorously designed studies have found short-term positive effects of parenting education on maternal knowledge, attitudes, and behavior (Johnson & Walker, 1991; Travers, et al., 1982; Andrews et al., 1982; St. Pierre, et al., 1995; Quint, et al., 1994), although there is evidence from some other studies that parenting education is less effective with teen mothers (Pfannenstiel & Seltzer, 1989). A review of 13 randomized trials of home visiting programs for low-income families with infants, which included parenting education as a major component, found mixed impacts on parental attitudes and behaviors (Olds & Kitzman, 1993). Although six of the studies showed small positive program effects on children's cognitive or social-emotional development, in only two of them was this change associated with parental change. The authors also looked at home visiting interventions for families at risk for child abuse or neglect and found no impact on parental behavior overall; however, in two of the six interventions there were positive changes in the caregiving behavior of unmarried teen mothers.
Two experimental studies compared the effectiveness of home-based and center-based parent education (Wasik, et al., 1990; Field, et al., 1982). Both revealed the effects on parent behavior and child development for center-based models only. Since the center-based programs included an early childhood education component, which the parents observed, it is likely that the effects reported are attributable to this component, rather than to the parent education component alone. Barnett (1995) used data from 33 early childhood intervention programs to demonstrate that persistent effects on children's school performance are not attributable to program effects on parents, but rather to early, direct effects on children, themselves.
These studies suggest that while it is possible to use parenting education to increase maternal knowledge, to change attitudes, and possibly to change their behavior with children, parenting education will not, by itself, result in improved child outcomes. This may be because the effects are not large enough or because change in parents occurs too slowly to affect early child outcomes. In addition, there is only limited research support for using paraprofessionals to deliver parent education through home visits, an increasingly popular intervention, if the ultimate outcome is improved child outcomes. It may be that professionals are more likely to interact directly with the children in the course of the home visit, in addition to working with the mother, providing a role model for interaction as well as direct experience for the child. David Olds is currently conducting an experimental test of the relative effectiveness of professional and paraprofessional home visitors.
Support services (e.g., transportation, meals, child care, counseling, and many others) play a role in many types of family intervention programs. The rationale is that while such supports may or may not have a direct effect on families, they can remove barriers to participation in the core programmatic services. To our knowledge there has been no research specifically on the effectiveness of support services in enhancing participation in more formal program services. Still, anecdotal evidence suggests their importance in different arenas:
Based on the evidence presented above, we offer some recommendations for improving family literacy programs.
There is no evidence that small, short-term effects on children or adults lead to large, long-term improvements in life chances. On the other hand, some programs which produce large effects on children's preschool performance also have produced large effects later in life. Family literacy programs ought to aim to achieve large effects both with children and adults. This stance implies that it is not worth spending money on family literacy programs unless we have reasonable expectations that they will have large effects.
There is no evidence that low-quality services lead to large effects. Rather, it is the high-quality, high-intensity programs (e.g., the Perry Preschool Program and the Infant Health and Development Program [IHDP]) which have produced large effects. A high intensity program such as the IHDP uses a carefully specified curriculum to provide a full-week, full-year program for children from 1 to 3 years of age. It has short-term cognitive effects on children which are on the order of five to ten times as large as the effects of low-intensity programs. Further, Wasik and Karweit (1994) concluded that the most effective early childhood interventions included intensive child and parent services that involved a center-based program for children and meetings with parents on a weekly or semi-weekly basis for at least a year. Low-intensity parenting components did not add much, if anything, to the effectiveness of a high-intensity child component.
Many family literacy programs rely on existing local service providers for early childhood education or adult education. This approach is efficient because it avoids duplication of services, but it can only be effective if those services are of a sufficient quality and intensity to produce large effects. Well-run, high-quality Head Start programs ought to be sufficient for early childhood education, but it is much more difficult to find high-quality, high-intensity adult education programs. It often may not be possible to create a high-quality, high-intensity family literacy program from locally existing services.
There is substantial evidence that effects on children are best achieved by services aimed directly at children, and effects on parents are best achieved by services aimed directly at parents. There is only limited evidence that we can achieve effects on children through earlier effects on parents. Thus, it is important for a family literacy program to provide early childhood education services directly for the benefit of children, and not to assume that it is just as good to provide parenting services to mothers who will then act as enhanced intervenors in their children's lives. Ramey, et al. (1995) support this point when they note that even programs with a strong parenting component can require years to produce effects. Under this scenario infants lose out, since they develop for some years without the benefit of high-quality parenting.
Program designs rarely reflect the fact that adults vary in their capacities and in their deficits. Adults enter adult education and parenting programs with different levels of motivation, knowledge, and skills, as well as with disparate learning styles. Why should they be expected to progress to the same satisfactory point when exposed for the same amount of time to a single curriculum delivered in a uniform fashion? While many families may benefit from home visits, there is bound to be variation in the needs of those families such that some need occasional visits by a paraprofessional while others need more frequent visits by a highly trained worker with a teaching style and curriculum tailored to their needs. Program staff often make this point, but the design and costs of local programs often do not allow much flexibility. At the same time there are families who have little need of one of the program components. Even among low-income families, there are intuitively sensitive and competent parents. Must they participate in parenting education as a condition of other assistance?
Sometimes what is observed in programs is less telling than what is not observed. In particular, there is little use of new technology in programs for parents. For example, videotaping has been used effectively in one or two parent education programs, but is not widely used. A greater use of computers and new educational software would make possible greater individualization in adult education and family literacy programs.
There is evidence suggesting that better effects are achieved when programs for parents and programs for children are located at a single site. We need to take seriously the multiple effects of such a strategy; children see their parents engaged in learning activities and acting as positive role models, and parents observe both their children's learning activities and also see caregivers and teachers modelling developmentally-appropriate behavior. At the same time, parents and children each benefit directly from the program components directed at them.
To conclude, intensive early childhood programs can have positive effects on children; adult education and job training programs produce positive effects on GED attainment, but not on literacy skills, and only small effects on income or employment; and although parenting programs can change parenting skills, there is little research evidence to show that these improved parenting skills have any impact on children. It is suggested that family literacy programs pay attention to the following:
These three suggestions, taken together, should be considered and discussed in the process of providing the best program service possible.
Andrews, S.R., Blumenthal, J.B., Johnson, D.L., Kahn, A.J., Ferguson, C.,J., Lasater, T.M., Malone, P.E. & Wallace, D.B. (1982). The skills of mothering: A study of parent child development centers. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development., 47, 6, Serial No. 198.
Barnett, W.S. (in press). Long-term effects of early childhood care and education on disadvantaged children's cognitive development and school success. In S. Boocock & W.S. Barnett (Eds.), Early Childhood Care and Education for Disadvantaged Children: Long-Term Effects. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Cameron, S. & J. Heckman (1993). Nonequivalence of high school equivalents. The Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 11: 1-47.
Datta, L.J. (1992). Youth interventions: Literacy. In T.G. Sticht, M.J. Beeler & B.A. McDonald (Eds.), The Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills, Volume 1: Programs, Policy, and Research Issues. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Duffy, T.M. (1992). What makes a difference in instruction? In T.G. Sticht, M.J. Beeler & B.A. McDonald (Eds.), The Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills, Volume 1: Programs, Policy, and Research Issues. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Field, T.M., Widmayer, S.M., Stringer, S. & Ignatoff, E. (1982). Teenage, lower-class, black mothers and their preterm infants: An intervention and developmental follow-up. Child Development, 51, 426-36.
Fischer, R.L. & Cordray, D.S. (1995). Job training and welfare reform: A policy-driven synthesis. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Gueron, J. M. & Pauly, E. (1991). From welfare to work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Harvey-Morgan, J., Hopey, C. & Rethmeyer, R. (1995). Computers, technology, and adult literacy: Results of a national survey on computer technology use in adult literacy programs. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, National Center on Adult Literacy.
Karweit, N.L. (1994). Can preschool alone prevent early learning failure? In R.E. Slavin, N.L. Karweit & B.A. Wasik (Eds.), Preventing Early School Failure: Research, Policy, and Practice. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Infant Health and Development Program (June 13, 1990). Enhancing the outcomes of low-birthweight, premature infants. Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 263, no. 22, 3035-3042.
Johnson, D. & Walker, T. (1991). Final report of an evaluation of the Avance parent education and family support program. Report submitted to the Carnegie Corporation. San Antonio, TX: Avance.
McKey, R.H., Condelli, L., Granson, H., Barrett, B., McConkey, C. & Plantz, M. (1985). The impact of Head Start on children, families, and communities. Washington, DC: CSR, Inc.
Mikulecky, L. (1992). National adult literacy and lifelong learning goals. National Center on Adult Literacy Newsletter. Philadelphia: National Center on Adult Literacy.
Moore, M. & Stavrianos, M. (1994). Adult education reauthorization: Background. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research.
Murnane, R. & Willett, J. (1993). Do high school dropouts benefit from obtaining a GED? Using multi-level modeling to examine longitudinal evidence from the NLSY. Unpublished manuscript. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Olds, D.L., & Kitzman, H. (1993). Review of research on home visiting for pregnant women and parents of young children. In The Future of Children: Home Visiting, Winter, 3, 3:53-92. Center for the Future of Children: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Office of Technology Assessment (1993). Adult literacy and new technologies: Tools for a lifetime (OTA-SET-550). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Pfannenstiel, J. & Seltzer, D. (1989). New parents as teachers: Evaluation of an early parent education program. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 4, 1-18.
Quint, J.C., Polit, D.F., Bos, H. & Cave, G. (1994). New Chance: Interim findings on a comprehensive program for disadvantaged young mothers and their children. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
Ramey, C.T., Ramey, S.L., Gaines, K.R. & Blair, C. (1995). Two-generation early intervention programs: A child development perspective. In S. Smith (Ed.), Two-generation programs for families in poverty: A new intervention strategy. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.
St. Pierre, R., Swartz, J., Gamse, B., Murray, S. & Deck, D. (1995). National evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program: Final report. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates Inc.
Travers, J., Nauta, M. & Irwin, N. (1982). The effects of a social program: Final report of the Child and Family Resource Program's Infant-Toddler Component. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates Inc.
Wasik, B., Ramey, C., Bryant, D. & Sparling, J. (1990) A longitudinal study of two early intervention strategies: Project CARE. Child Development. 61, 1682-96.
Wasik, B.A. & Karweit, N.L. (1994). Off to a good start: Effects of birth to three interventions on early school success. In R.E. Slavin, N.L. Karweit, and B.A. Wasik (Eds.) Preventing Early School Failure: Research, Policy, and Practice. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Webb, L., Sherman, J. & Koloski, J. (1993). A review of research on effective practices in adult education programs. In J. Sherman, Identifying Effective Adult Education Programs and Practices: Expert Papers and Overview of Reports. Washington, D.C. Pelavin Associates, Inc.
Young, M., Morgan, M., Fitzgerald, N. & Fleischman, H. (1994). National Evaluation of Adult Education Programs: Final Report. Arlington, VA: Development Associates Inc.
-###-
[Commissioned Papers: Meeting the Needs...]