Parental advantagement, IQ, and differential responsiveness to an education enrichment program
✍ Scribed by Daniel K. Sturgis; C. U. Iacono; Joseph T. Kunce
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1974
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 370 KB
- Volume
- 11
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0033-3085
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Early childhood experience at home and in school can affect critically a student's subsequent educational career. Home environment has been shown to affect academic achievement and I& (Eells, 1952;Fleming, 1943;Rossi, 1961), the type of cultural background to accentuate "unique" learning styles (Bernstein, 1961), and level of parental educational attainment to influence initial readiness for school (Gottlieb & Ramsey, 1967; Haskett, 1973; Klausmeier & Goodwin, 1966). The academic consequences of such circumstances reportedly persist and increase rather than decrease with each passing school year (Bloom, Allison, & Hess, 1967). In view of these consequences, educators have devised remedial, compensatory, and educational enrichment programs to enhance achievement of students who initially lack prerequisite skills.
The effectiveness of compensatory education41 programs has not yet been demonstrated clearly (Hellmuth, 1970). The purpose of the present study was to investigate further the issue of program effectiveness. Specifically, analyses of academic achievement effects upon students were made from data collected in a large-scale experimental intervention program, Project SUCCESS. This federallyand locally-supported program was conducted in the school system of a southeastern community with a population of about 30,000. Four of eight elementary schools in the community were designated to participate in an enrichment program. These schools were matched with the other four schools as well as possible in terms of location, type of students, etc. According to Wellman (1971), subsequent analysis of student characteristics at the onset of the project indicated no statistically significant differences between students in the project and comparison schools on such variables as education or occupation of parents, number of children in family, age of pupils, or scores on academic readiness tests. The pupils in the experimental and control schools, therefore, had been demonstrated to be essentially equivalent.
The research project provided a full range of supplemental and "tailored" enrichment services to students in the selected schools. The students had been assessed individually and their unique needs diagnosed. A total of 13 special programs were devised in order to provide services to the students upon the basis of their individually diagnosed needs. Some of the special programs were : linguistic readings, basal readings, oral language development, perceptual motor activities, family counseling, multimedia math, and basic skills. Extensive use was made of professional services within and outside the school system, among which were the services of counselors, hearing specialists, nurses, special education specialists, speech therapists, vision consultants, and instructional material consultants. More details of the project and its activities can be obtained in a report by Wellman (1971).