First grade school readiness of former child participants in a South Carolina replication of the Parent-Child Home Program

The Parent-child Home Program (PCHP) is a 2-year home-based program, for low-income parents and their 2- and 3-year-old children at risk for educational disadvantage. To study the effects of a South Carolina PCHP replication on the school readiness of 84 former participants in four successive first grade cohorts (1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000), their scores on the Cognitive Skills Assessment Battery (CSAB) given to all South Carolina first graders were compared to scores statewide and in the school district. Scores indicating school readiness were achieved by 82.4% of first graders statewide and by 84.5% of all PCHP children (by 92.2% when seven PCHP children with severe developmental delay [SDD] were excluded). Among those receiving free lunch, 74.4% of statewide children but 93.2% of non-SDD PCHP children passed the CSAB school readiness score of 88 (p < .001). 75.6% of African American children passed the CSAB statewide, but 92.7% of non-SDD African American PCHP children did so (p < .01). Pass rates of non-SDD PCHP children were higher than those of at-risk non-PCHP children in the school district (.05 < p < .1). All parents invited into the PCHP accepted enrollment and 96.2% of those who remained in the district completed the 2-year program,at a cost of US$2000 per family. The PCHP is a feasible social program that normalized performance on a standardized educational test in at-risk first graders and eliminated the excess risk of inadequate school readiness associated with low income and African American ethnicity. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.